Wishart, left to himself, began to walk about slowly at the back of the high altar. He paced to and fro, sadness depicted on his countenance, and everything about him revealing the deep grief that was in his soul. This lasted about half an hour. At length he passed into the pulpit. The audience was small, as it had been the day before. He had not power to treat the subject which he had proposed: his heart was too full, and he must needs unburden it before God. ‘O Lord,’ said he, ‘how long shall it be that thy holy Word shall be despised and men shall not regard their own salvation? I have heard of thee, Haddington, that in thee would have been at a vain clerk-play two or three thousand people, and now to hear the messenger of the eternal God, of all the town or parish cannot be numbered one hundred persons. Sore and fearful shall the plagues be that shall ensue this thy contempt, with fire and sword shalt thou be plagued. And that because ye have not known nor will not know the time of God’s merciful visitation.’ After saying these words he made a short paraphrase of the second table of the law. He exhorted to patience, to the fear of God, and to works of mercy; and impressed by the presentiment that this was the last time he should publicly preach, he made (so to speak) his last testament, declaring that the spirit of truth and judgment were both in his heart and on his lips.[340]
He quitted the church, bade farewell to his friends, and then prepared to leave the town. ‘I will not leave you alone,’ said Knox to him. But Wishart, who had his approaching end constantly before his eyes, said—‘Nay, return to your bairns [his pupils], and God bless you. One is sufficient for a sacrifice.’ He then compelled Knox to give up the sword, and parted with him. The laird of Ormiston, who was at the time with Wishart, had invited him to his house in the country. They set out on their journey with several gentlemen of the neighborhood. The cold was severe, and they therefore travelled on foot. While at supper Wishart spoke of the death of God’s children. Then he said with a cheerful smile—‘Methinks that I desire earnestly to sleep. We’ll sing a psalm.’ He chose Psalm li., and struck up the tune himself:—‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness.’ As soon as the psalm was ended, he went to his chamber and to bed.
ARREST OF WISHART.
A little before midnight a troop of armed men silently approached, surrounded the house that no one might escape, and demanded Wishart. But neither promises nor threats could induce Ormiston to deliver up his guest. They then went for the earl of Bothwell, the most powerful lord of that region. Bothwell came, and said to the laird—‘It is but vain to make him to hold his house, for the governor and the cardinal with all their power are coming. But and if you will deliver the man unto me, I will promise upon my honor that he shall be safe and sound, and that it shall pass the power of the cardinal to do him any harm or scathe.’ Ormiston, confiding in this promise, told Wishart what had occurred. ‘Open the gates,’ replied he, immediately; ‘the blessed will of my God be done.’ Bothwell entered, with several gentlemen who accompanied him. Wishart said to him, ‘I praise my God that so honorable a man as you, my lord, receives me this night in the presence of these noblemen; for now I am assured that, for your honor’s sake, ye will suffer nothing to be done unto me besides the order of law.’ The earl replied—‘I shall preserve your body from all violence, neither shall the governor nor cardinal have their will over you: but I shall retain you in my own hands till that either I shall make you free or else restore you in the same place where I receive you.’ Immediately after giving this promise, the earl set out with Wishart for Elphinston. The cardinal, bent on getting possession of Wishart’s friends, sent five hundred horsemen to Ormiston to seize the laird, together with the lairds of Brownston and Calder. Brownston fled through the woods, but the other two were carried off to Edinburgh castle. Wishart was removed to the strong castle of Hailes on the banks of the Tyne, the principal mansion of Bothwell in the Lothians.[341]
That did not satisfy the cardinal, who wanted Wishart more than all. The queen-mother, Mary of Guise, who was not on friendly terms with Bothwell, promised him her support if he would give up the evangelist. The cardinal, on his part, ‘gave gold, and that largely.’ ‘Gold and women have corrupted all worldly and fleshly men from the beginning,’ says Knox.[342] The earl raised some objections: ‘but an effeminate man,’adds Knox, ‘cannot long withstand the assaults of a gracious queen.’ Wishart was first taken to Edinburgh castle, and at the end of January, 1546, the regent gave him up to the cardinal, who confined him at St. Andrews, in the sea tower. The assistance of a civil judge was, it seems, necessary to give validity to the judgment. The cardinal requested one of Arran, but one of the regent’s councillors, Hamilton of Preston, said to him—‘What, will you deliver up to wicked men those whose uprightness is acknowledged even by their enemies? Will you put to death those who are guilty of no more crime than that of preaching the Gospel of Christ? What ingratitude towards God!’
The regent consequently wrote to the cardinal that he would not consent that any hurt should be done to that man without a careful investigation of his cause. The cardinal, on receiving this letter, flew into a violent passion. ‘It was only for civility’s sake,’ said he, ‘that I made the request. I and my clergy have the power in ourselves to inflict on Wishart the chastisement which he deserves.’ He invited the archbishop of Glasgow, and all bishops and other dignitaries of the Church, to assemble at St. Andrews on February 27 to consult on the matter, although it was already decided in his own mind.’[343]
The next day the dean of St. Andrews went to the prison where Wishart was confined, and summoned him in the cardinal’s name to appear before the judges on the morrow. ‘What needed,’ replied the prisoner, ‘my lord cardinal to summon me to answer for my doctrine openly before him, under whose power and dominion I am thus straitly bound in irons? May not my lord compel me to answer to his extorted power?’ On March 1 the cardinal ordered all the household servants of his palace to put themselves under arms. The civil power, it is remembered, had refused to take part in the proceedings, and therefore Beatoun took its place. His men at once equipped themselves with lances, swords, axes, knapsacks, and other warlike array. It might have been thought that some military action was in hand, rather than a gathering of priests who assumed to busy themselves about God’s Church. These armed champions, putting themselves in marching order, first escorted the bishops with great ceremony to the abbey church, and then went for Wishart. The governor of the castle put himself at the head of the band, and so they led the prisoner ‘like a lamb to sacrifice.’ As he entered the door of the abbey church he threw his purse to a poor infirm man lying there, and at length he stood in the presence of the numerous and brilliant assembly. To invest the proceedings with due formality, Beatoun had caused two platforms to be erected, facing each other. Wishart was set on one of them, and the accuser, Lauder, took his place on the other. The dean, Winryme,[344] then appeared in the pulpit. This worthy churchman, who was charged to deliver the customary sermon, was secretly a friend to the Gospel. He read the parable of the ‘good seed’ and the tares (Matt. xiii. 24-30), and set forth various pious considerations which told more against the judges than against the accused, and which the latter heard with pleasure. Winryme concluded, however, by saying that the tares were heresy, and that heretics ought to be put down in this life by the civil magistrate; yet in the passage he was treating stood the words, ‘Let both grow together until the harvest.’ It remained to ascertain which were heretics, the judges or the accused.[345]
PREPARATIONS FOR HIS TRIAL.
When the sermon was ended, the bishops ordered Wishart to stand up on his platform to hear the accusation. Then rose the accuser, John Lauder, a priest whom the chronicler calls a monster, and, facing Wishart, unrolled a long paper full of threatenings and devilish maledictions, and, addressing the guiltless evangelist in cruel words, hurled pitilessly at him all the thunders of the papacy. The ignorant crowd who heard him, expected to see the earth open and swallow the unhappy reformer; but he remained quiet, and listened with great patience and without a change of countenance to the violent accusations of his adversary. When Lauder had finished reading at the top of his voice the threatening indictment, he turned to Wishart, his face ‘all running down with sweat,’ says the chronicler, ‘and frothing at the mouth like a boar, he spat at Mr. George’s face, saying, What answerest thou to these sayings, thou renegade, traitor, and thief, which we have duly proved by sufficient witness against thee?’[346]
Wishart knelt down and prayed for the help of God. Then rising, he made answer with all sweetness—‘My lords, I pray you quietly to hear me, so that instead of condemning me unjustly, to the great peril of your souls, you may know that I have taught the pure Word of God, and that you may receive it yourselves as the source from which health and life shall spring forth for you. In Dundee I taught the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, and shall show your discretions faithfully what fashion and manner I used when I taught, without any human dread....’