Among the protectors of these brave folk was John Campbell, laird of Cessnock, a man well grounded in the evangelical doctrine, modest even to timidity, but abounding in works of mercy, and who received with goodwill not only the Lollards but those even whose opinions were opposed to his own. His partner, with a character of greater decision than his own, was a woman well versed in the Bible, and being thoroughly acquainted with the Scriptures was safe against intimidation. Every morning the family and the servants assembled in a room of the mansion, and a priest, the chaplain, opened in the midst of them a New Testament, a very rare book at that period, and read and explained it.[5] When this family worship and the first meal were over, the Campbells would visit the poor and the sick. At the dinner hour they called together some of their neighbors: monks as well as gentlefolk would come and sit at their table. One day the conversation turning on the conventual life and the habits of the priests, Campbell spoke on the subject with moderation but also with freedom. The monks, exasperated, put crafty questions to him, provoked him, and succeeded in drawing from him words which in their eyes were heretical. Forgetting the claims of hospitality they hastened to the house of the bishop and denounced their host and the lady of the house. Inquiry was set on foot; the crime of heresy was proved. Campbell saw the danger which threatened him and appealed to the king.
James IV., who had married Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., was then reigning in Scotland. His life had not been spotless: he was often tormented with remorse, and in his fits of melancholy he resolved to make up for his sins by applying himself to the administration of justice. He had the two parties appear before him; the monks cited decisions of the Church sufficient to condemn the prisoner. The weak and simple-minded Campbell was somewhat embarrassed;[6] his answers were timid and inadequate. He could talk with widows and orphans, but he could not cope with these monks. But his wife was full of decision and courage. When requested by the king to speak, she took up one by one the accusations of the monks, and setting them face to face with the Holy Scriptures, showed their falsehood. Her speech was clear, serious, and weighty with conviction. The king, persuaded by her eloquence, declared to the monks that if they should again persecute honest people in that way, they should be severely punished. And then, touched by the piety of this eminent woman and wishing to give her a token of his respect, he rose from his seat, went up to her and embraced her.[7] Turning to her husband, ‘As for you,’ said he, ‘I give you in fee such and such villages, and I intend them to be testimonies for ever of my good will towards you.’ The husband and wife withdrew full of joy, and the monks full of vexation and shame. Thirty other evangelicals, professing the same doctrines as the laird of Cessnock, were cited, but they were dismissed with the request to be satisfied with the faith of the Church. This took place about the year 1512, the year in which Zwingle began to search the Scriptures and in which Luther on Pilate’s Staircase at Rome heard that word which went on resounding in his heart, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ The brave Scotchwoman had fought a battle at an outpost and sounded the prelude to the Reformation.
ELECTION OF A BISHOP IN SCOTLAND.
Unhappily the accession of Henry VIII. to the throne of England turned the thoughts of the King of Scotland in another direction. Henry VII., as long as he lived, had striven to keep on good terms with his son-in-law; but Henry VIII., a monarch haughty, sensitive, and impatient, and who in mere wilfulness would quarrel with his neighbors, was far less friendly with his sister’s husband. He even delayed for a long time the payment of the legacy which her father had left her. The frequent attacks of the English, and the necessity thereby imposed on the Scots of constantly keeping watch on the borders, had given rise to distrust and hatred between the two nations. At the same time the ancient rivalry of France and England had thrown Scotland on the side of the French. When the English eagle pounced on unguarded France, ‘the weasel Scot’ came sliding into its nest and devoured the royal brood.[8] Henry VIII. revived those ancient traditions; and France took advantage of them to enfeoff Scotland still further to herself at the very moment when the Medici and the Guises were on the point of seizing at Paris the reins of government. Insulted by Henry VIII., James IV. resolved, in spite of the wise remonstrance of the old earl of Angus, to attack England. Scotland gave him the élite of her people. He fought at Flodden with intrepid courage, but hit by two arrows and struck by a battle-axe he fell on the field, while round him lay the corpses of twelve earls, thirteen lords, two bishops, two mitred abbots, a great number of gentlemen, and more than ten thousand soldiers. Several students, and among them one named Andrew Duncan, son of the laird of Airdrie, whom we shall meet again, were either killed or made prisoners on that fatal day.
The king’s son, James V. (afterwards father of Mary Stuart), was scarcely two years old at the time of his father’s death. His mother, sister of Henry VIII., assumed the regency, and during his minority the nobles exercised an influence which was to be one day favorable to liberty, and thereby to the Gospel. The king and the priests, both driving at absolute power, the former in the State, the latter in the Church, now made common cause against the nobles. Strange conflicts then took place between the various powers of Scotland. One of these conflicts had just disturbed the first city of the kingdom, St. Andrews, and had mingled with the noise of the stormy sea, which roared at the foot of the rocks, the voices of priests struggling around the Cathedral, the cries of soldiers and the reverberations of cannon. Alexander Stuart, archbishop of St. Andrews, primate of Scotland, having fallen on the field of Flodden, three competitors appeared for the possession of his primatial see. These were John Hepburn, prior of St. Andrews, the candidate of the canons; Gavin Douglas, brother of the earl of Angus, candidate of the nobles; and Andrew Forman, bishop of Murray, candidate of the pope. Douglas had already been put by the queen in possession of the castle of St. Andrews; but Hepburn, an ambitious man of high spirit, with the aid of the canons, took it by assault, fortified himself in it,[9] and then set out for Rome to secure the pontifical investiture. Forman, the pope’s candidate, taking advantage of his rival’s absence, seized the castle and the monastery, and placed there a strong garrison. Hepburn was pacified by the gift of a pension of 3,000 crowns; while Douglas, candidate of the nobles, finding that there was neither money nor mitre for him, cannonaded and captured the cathedral of Dunkeld.[10] In such fashion was the election of a bishop made in Scotland before the Reformation.
The elections of priests were conducted after somewhat different methods. The lesser benefices were put up to auction and sold by wandering bards, diceplayers, or minions of the Court. The bishops, who gave their illegitimate daughters to the nobles, kept the best places in the Church for their bastards. These young worldlings, hurrying off to their pleasures, abandoned their flocks to monks, who retailed in the pulpit absurd legends of their saint, of his combats with the devil and of his flagellations, or amused the people with low jesting. This system, which passing for a representation of Christianity was merely its parody, destroyed not only Christian piety and morality, but the peace of families, the freedom of the people, and the prosperity of the kingdom.[11]
While ambition, idleness and licentiousness thus prevailed among the clergy, God was preparing ‘new vessels’ into which to pour the new wine which the old vessels could no longer hold. Some simple-minded men were on the point of achieving by their Christian faith and life a victory over the rich, powerful, and worldly pontiffs. Three young men, born almost with the century, were just beginning a career, the struggles and trials of which were as yet unknown to them. These men were to become the reformers of the Church of Scotland.
BIRTH OF ALESIUS.
On April 23, 1500, the wife of an honest citizen of Edinburgh gave birth to a son who was afterwards called by some Alane, and by others Ales, but who signed his own name Alesius, the form which we shall adopt. Alexander—that was his baptismal name—was a child remarkable for liveliness, and the anxiety of his devoted parents lest any accident should befall him led them to hang round his neck, as a safeguard against every danger, a paper on which a priest had written some verses of St. John. Alesius was fond of going, with other boys of his own age, to the heights which environ Edinburgh. The great rock on the summit of which the castle stands, the beautiful Calton Hill, and the picturesque hill called Arthur’s Seat, in turn attracted them. One day—it was in 1512—Alexander and some friends, having betaken themselves to the last-named hill, amused themselves by rolling over and over down a slope which terminated in a precipice. Suddenly the lad found himself on the brink: terror deprived him of his senses: some hand grasped him and placed him in safety, but he never knew by whom or by what he had been saved. The priests gave the credit of this escape to the paper with which they had provided him, but Alexander himself attributed it to God and his father’s prayers. ‘Ah!’ said he, many years afterwards, ‘I never recall that event without a great shudder through my whole body.’[12] Some time after he was sent to the University of St. Andrews to complete his education.
Another young boy, of more illustrious birth, gave promise of an eminent manhood; he belonged to the Hamilton family which, under James III., had taken the highest position in Scotland. Born in the county of Linlithgow, westward of Edinburgh, and somewhat younger than Alesius, he was to inaugurate the Reformation. Linlithgow was at that time the Versailles of the kingdom, and could boast of a more ancient origin than the palace of Louis XIV. Its projecting porticoes, its carvings in wood, its wainscot panelings, its massive balustrades, its roofs over-hanging the street, produced the most picturesque effect. The castle was at once palace, fortress, and prison; it was the pleasure-house to which the Court used to retire for relaxation, and within its walls Mary Stuart was born.