TRIAL OF CATHERINE HAMILTON.
His sister Catherine was both a warm-hearted Scotchwoman and a decided Huguenot. She would not make her escape, but appeared at Holyrood in the presence of the ecclesiastical tribunal and of the king himself. ‘By what means,’ they said to her, ‘do you expect to be saved?’—‘By faith in the Saviour,’ she replied, ‘and not by works.’ Then one of the canonists, Master John Spence, said at great length—‘It is necessary to distinguish between various kinds of works. In the first place, there are works of congruity, secondly, there are works of condignity. The works of the just are of this latter category, and they merit life ex condigno. There are also pious works; then works of supererogation;’ and he explained in scholastic terms what all these expressions meant. These strange words sounded in Catherine’s ears like the noise of a false-bass (faux-bourdon). Wearied with this theological babbling, she got excited, and exclaimed—‘Works here, works there.... What signify all the works?... There is one thing alone which I know with certainty, and that is that no work can save me, except the work of Christ my Saviour.’ The doctor sat amazed and made no answer, while the king strove in vain to hide a fit of laughter. He was anxious to save Catherine, and made a sign for her to come to him; he then entreated her to declare to the tribunal that she respected the Church. Catherine, who had never had a thought of setting herself in rebellion against the higher powers, gave the king leave to say what he wished, and withdrew first into England, then to France. She probably entered the family of her husband,[182] who, during his lifetime, was a French officer in the suite of the duke of Albany.
But these punishments and banishments did not put an end to the storm. Several other evangelical Christians were also obliged at that time to leave Scotland. Gawin Logie, a canon of St. Andrews, and principal regent of St. Leonard’s College, at which Patrick Hamilton had exercised so powerful an influence, had diffused scriptural principles among the students to such an extent that people were accustomed to say, when they would make you understand that anyone was an evangelical Christian, ‘He has drunk at the well of St. Leonard’s.’ Logie quitted Scotland in 1534. Johnston, an Edinburgh advocate, Fife, a friend of Alesius, M’Alpine, and several others had to go into exile at the same time. The last-named, known on the continent by the name of Maccabæus, won the favor of the King of Denmark, and became a professor at the university of Copenhagen.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE KING OF SCOTLAND BREAKS WITH ENGLAND, AND ALLIES HIMSELF WITH FRANCE AND THE GUISES.
(1534–1539.)
BREAK WITH ENGLAND.
Notwithstanding the literary and liberal pretensions of Francis I., the ultramontane spirit seemed secure of a triumph in France. There doubtless existed freer and holier aspirations, but certain of the bishops were more popish than the pope, and kings found it convenient to show themselves very indulgent to the licentiousness of the clergy, provided that they in return would lend a hand in support of their despotism. The priests of Scotland therefore redoubled their efforts to make a breach between James and his uncle of England, and to ally him with the eldest daughter of the papacy.