The History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland / With Which Are Included Knox's Confession and The Book of Discipline

by John Knox

Then was heard nothing on the Queen's part but, "My joys, my hearts, what ails you? Me means no evil to you nor to your preachers. The bishops shall do you no wrong. Ye are all my loving subjects. Me know nothing of this proclamation. The day of your preachers shall be discharged, and me will hear the controversy that is betwixt the bishops and you. They shall do you no wrong. My Lords," said she to the bishops, "I forbid you either to trouble them or their preachers." And unto the gentlemen, who were wondrously moved, she turned again, and said, "O my hearts, should ye not love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind? and should ye not love your neighbours as yourselves?" With these and the like fair words, she kept the bishops from buffets at that time.

The downcasting of Saint Giles's Image, and Discomfiture of Baal's Priests.

The day of summons being discharged, the brethren universally began to be further encouraged. But the bishops could not be quiet; and Saint Giles's day approaching, they gave charge to the Provost, Bailies, and Council of Edinburgh, either to get again the old Saint Giles, or else at their own expense to make a new image. The Council answered that to them the charge appeared very unjust; for they understood that God in some places had commanded idols and images to be destroyed. Where He had commanded images to be set up, they had not read; and they desired the Bishop to find a warrant for his commandment. The Bishop, offended, admonished them under pain of cursing; but they prevented[119] this by a formal appellation, appealing from him, as from a partial and corrupt judge, unto the Pope's Holiness. Greater things shortly following, that passed into oblivion.

Yet the priests and Friars would not cease to have that great solemnity and manifest abomination which they accustomably had upon Saint Giles's day. They would have that idol borne; and therefore all necessary preparation was duly made. A marmoset idol was borrowed from the Grey Friars, a silver piece of James Carmichael being laid in pledge. It was fast fixed with iron nails upon a barrow, called their fertour.[120] There assembled priests, Friars, Canons, and rotten Papists, with tabors and trumpets, banners and bagpipes, and who was there to lead the ring, but the Queen Regent herself, with all her shavelings, for honour of that feast. West about it went, and came down the High Street, and down to the Canon Cross. The Queen Regent dined that day in Sandy Carpetyne's house, betwixt the Bows, and so, when the idol returned again, she left it, and went to her dinner. The hearts of the brethren were wondrously inflamed, and, seeing such abomination so manifestly maintained, were determined to be revenged. They were divided into several companies, of which not one knew of another. There were some temporisers that day (amongst whom David Forrest, called the General, was one) who, fearing the chance would be taken to do as it befell, laboured to stay the brethren. But that could not be.

Immediately after the Queen had entered the lodging, some of those that were in the enterprise drew nigh to the idol, as if willing to help to bear him, and getting the fertour upon their shoulders, began to shudder, thinking that thereby the idol should have fallen. But that was provided for and prevented by the iron nails, as we have said; and so one began to cry, "Down with the idol; down with it;" and without delay it was pulled down. One took him by the heels and, dadding[121] his head on the causeway, left Dagon without head or hands, and cried, "Fie upon thee, thou young Saint Giles, thy father would have tarried four such." The priest's patrons made some brag at the first; but when they saw the feebleness of their god, priests and Friars fled faster than they did at Pinkie Cleuch. Then might have been seen so sudden a fray as seldom has been amongst that sort of men within this realm. Down went the crosses, off went the surplice, and the round caps cornered with the crowns.[122] The Grey Friars gaped, the Black Friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first reached the house; such a sudden fray amongst the generation of Antichrist within this realm never came before. By chance, there lay upon a stair a merry Englishman, who, seeing that the discomfiture was without blood, thought he would add some merriness to the matter, and so cried he over the stair, and said, "Fie upon you, why have ye broken order? Down the street ye passed in array and with great mirth. Why flee ye now, villains, without order? Turn and strike everyone a stroke for the honour of his god. Fie, cowards, fie, ye shall never be judged worthy of your wages again!" But exhortations were then unprofitable; for, after Baal had broken his neck, there was no comfort to his confused army.

The Queen Regent laid this up amongst her other mementoes, until she might see the time proper to revenge it. Search was made for the doers, but none could be apprehended; for the brethren assembled themselves in such sort, in companies, singing psalms and praising God, that the proudest of the enemies were astonished....

The most part of the Lords that were in France at the Queen's marriage, although they got their congé from the Court, yet forgot to return to Scotland. For whether it was by an Italian posset, or by French figs, or by the potage of their potinger, who was a Frenchman, there departed from this life the Earl of Cassillis, the Earl of Rothes, Lord Fleming, and the Bishop of Orkney, whose end was even according to his life.... When word of the departing of so many patrons of the papistry, and of the manner of their departing, came to the Queen Regent, she said, after astonishment and musing, "What shall I say of such men? They lived as beasts, and as beasts they die: God is not with them, neither with that which they enterprise."

The Dean of Restalrig, Hypocrite, begins to Preach.

While these things were happening in Scotland and France, that perfect hypocrite, Master John Sinclair, then Dean of Restalrig, and now Lord President and Bishop of Brechin, began to preach in his Kirk of Restalrig. At the beginning he kept himself so indifferent that many were of the opinion that he was not far from the Kingdom of God. Such as feared God had begun to have a good opinion of him, and the Friars and others of that sect had begun to whisper that if he did not take heed to himself and to his doctrine he would be the destruction of the whole estate of the Kirk. But his hypocrisy could not long be cloaked; for, when he learned of this change in public opinion, he promised a sermon, in which he should give his judgment upon all such heads as were then in controversy in the matters of religion. The bruit hereof secured him a great audience at the first; but he so handled himself that day that no godly man did credit him after that. Not only gainsaid he the doctrine of Justification and of prayer, which before he had taught, but he also set up and maintained the Papistry to the uttermost prick; yea, holy water, pilgrimage, purgatory, and pardons were of such virtue in his conceit that he looked not to be saved without them.