Nor must we overlook another means which operated very extensively in alienating the public mindfrom the established religion. Those who have investigated the causes which led to the Reformation on the continent, have ascribed a considerable share of influence to the writings of the poets and satirists of the age. Poetry has charms for persons of every description; and in return for the pleasure which it affords them, mankind have in all ages been disposed to allow a greater liberty to poets than to any other class of writers. Strange as it may appear, the poets who flourished before the Reformation used very great freedom with the church, and there were not wanting many persons of exalted rank who encouraged them in this species of composition. The same individuals who were ready, at the call of the pope and clergy, to undertake a crusade for extirpating heresy, entertained poets who inveighed against the abuses of the court of Rome, and lampooned the religious orders. One day they assisted at an auto‑da‑fe, in which heretics were committed to the flames for the preservation of the catholic church; next day they were present at the acting of a pantomime or a play, in which the ministers of that church were held up to ridicule. Intoxicated with power, and lulled asleep by indolence, the clergy had either overlooked these attacks, or treated them with contempt; it was only from experience that they learned their injurious tendency; and before they made the discovery, the practice had become so common that it could no longer be restrained. This weapon was wielded with much success by the friends of the Reformed doctrine in Scotland. Some of their number had acquiredgreat celebrity among their countrymen as poets; and others, who could not lay claim to high poetical merit, possessed a talent for wit and humour. They employed themselves in writing satires, in which the ignorance, the negligence, and the immorality, of the clergy were stigmatized, and the absurdities and superstitions of the popish religion exposed to ridicule. These poetical effusions were easily committed to memory, and were circulated without the intervention of the press, which was at that time entirely under the control of the bishops. An attack still more bold was made upon the church. Dramatic compositions, partly written in the same strain, were repeatedly acted in the presence of the royal family, the nobility, and vast assemblies of people, to the great mortification, and the still greater disadvantage, of the clergy.The bishops repeatedly procured the enactment of laws against the circulation of seditious rhymes, and blasphemous ballads; but metrical epistles, moralities, and psalms, in the Scottish language, continued to be read with avidity, notwithstanding prohibitory statutes and legal prosecutions.[50]
In the year 1540, the reformed doctrine could number among its converts, besides a multitude of the common people, many persons of rank and external respectability: among whom were William, earl of Glencairn; his son Alexander, lord Kilmaurs; William, earl of Errol; William, lord Ruthven; his daughter Lillias, wife of the master of Drummond; John Stewart,son of lord Methven; Sir James Sandilands, Sir David Lindsay, Campbell of Cesnock, Erskine of Dun, Melville of Raith, Balnaves of Halhill, Straiton of Lauriston, with William Johnston, and Robert Alexander, advocates.[51] The early period at which they were enrolled as friends to the Reformation, renders these names more worthy of consideration. It has often been alleged, that the desire of sharing in the rich spoils of the popish church, together with the intrigues of the court of England, engaged the Scottish nobles on the side of the reformed religion. At a later period, there is reason to think that this allegation was not altogether groundless. But at the time of which we now speak, the prospect of overturning the established church was too distant and uncertain, to induce persons, who had no higher motive than to gratify avarice, to take a step by which they exposed their lives and fortunes to the most imminent hazard; nor had the English monarch yet extended his influence in Scotland, by those arts of political intrigue which he afterwards employed.
During the two last years of the reign of James V., the numbers of the reformed rapidly increased. Twice did the clergy attempt to cut them off by a desperate blow. They presented to the king a list, containing the names of some hundreds, possessed of property and wealth, whom they denounced as heretics; and endeavoured to procure his consent to their condemnation, by flattering him with the immense richeswhich would accrue to him from the forfeiture of their estates. When this proposal was first made to him, James rejected it with strong marks of displeasure; but so violent was the antipathy which he at last conceived against his nobility, and so much did he fall under the influence of the clergy,that it is highly probable he would have yielded to the solicitations of the latter, if the disgraceful issue of an expedition, which they had instigated him to undertake against the English, had not impaired his reason, and put an end to his unhappy life, on the 13th of December, 1542.[52]
PERIOD II.
FROM THE YEAR 1542, WHEN HE EMBRACED THE REFORMED RELIGION, TO THE YEAR 1549, WHEN HE WAS RELEASED FROM THE FRENCH GALLEYS.
While this fermentation of opinion was spreading through the nation, Knox, from the state of his mind, could not remain long unaffected.The reformed doctrines had been imbibed by several persons of his acquaintance, and they were the topic of common conversation and dispute among the learned and inquisitive at the university.[53] His change of views first discovered itself in his philosophical lectures, in which he began to forsake the scholastic path, and to recommend to his pupils a more rational and useful method of study. Even this innovation excited against him violent suspicions of heresy, which were confirmed, when he proceeded to reprehend the corruptionsthat prevailed in the church. He was then teaching at St Andrews; but it was impossible for him to remain long in a town, which was wholly under the power of cardinal Beatoun, the chief supporter of the Romish church, and a determined enemy to all reform. Accordingly he left that place, and retired to the south of Scotland, where he avowed his belief of the protestant doctrine. Provoked by his defection, and alarmed lest he should draw others after him, the clergy were anxious to rid themselves of such an adversary.Having passed sentence against him as a heretic, and degraded him from the priesthood, the cardinal employed assassins to waylay him, by whose hands he must have fallen, had not providence placed him under the protection of Douglas of Langniddrie.[54]
The change produced in the political state of the kingdom by the death of James V. had great influence upon the Reformation. After a bold but unsuccessful attempt by cardinal Beatoun, to secure to himself the government during the minority of the infant queen, the earl of Arran was peaceably established in the regency. Arran had formerly shown himself attached to the reformed doctrines, and he was now surrounded with counsellors who were of the same principles. Henry VIII. laid hold of this opportunity for accomplishing his favourite measure of uniting the two crowns, and eagerly pressed a marriage between his son Edward and Mary, the young queen of Scots. Notwithstanding the determined opposition of the whole body of the clergy, the Scottish parliament agreed to the match; commissioners were sent into England to settle the terms; and the contract of marriage was drawn out, subscribed, and ratified by all the parties. But through the intrigues of the cardinal and queen‑mother, the fickleness and timidity of the regent, and the violence of the English monarch, the treaty, after proceeding thus far, was broken off; and Arran not only renounced connexion with England, but abjured the reformed religion publicly in the church of Stirling. The Scottish queen was soon after betrothed to the dauphin of France, and sent into that kingdom; a measure which, at a subsequent period, nearly accomplished the ruin of the independence of Scotland, and the extirpation of the protestant religion.
The Reformation had, however, made very considerableprogress during the short time that it was patronised by the regent. In 1542, the parliament passed an act, declaring it lawful for all the subjects to read the scriptures in the vulgar language.This act, which was proclaimed in spite of the protestations of the bishops, was a signal triumph of truth over error.[55] Formerly, it was reckoned a crime to look on the sacred books; now, to read them was safe, and even the way to honour.The Bible was to be seen on every gentleman’s table; the New Testament was almost in every one’s hands.[56] Hitherto the Reformation had been advanced by books imported from England; but now the errors of popery were attacked in publications which issued from the Scottish press.The reformed preachers, whom the regent had chosen as chaplains, disseminated their doctrines throughout the kingdom, and, under the sanction of his authority, made many converts from the Roman catholic faith.[57]
One of these preachers deserves particular notice here, as it was by means of his sermons that Knox first perceived the beauty of evangelical truth, and had deep impressions of religion made upon his heart.[58] Thomas Guillaume, or Williams, was born at Athelstoneford, a village in East Lothian, and had entered into the order of Blackfriars, or Dominican monks, among whom he rose to great eminence.[59] But havingembraced the sentiments of the reformers, he threw off the monkish habit. His learning and elocution recommended him to Arran and his protestant counsellors; and he was much esteemed by the people as a clear expositor of scripture. When the regent began to waver in his attachment to the Reformation, Guillaume was dismissed from the court, and retired into England, after which I do not find him noticed in history.
But the person to whom our Reformer was most indebted, was George Wishart, a brother of the laird of Pittarow in Mearns. Being driven into banishment by the bishop of Brechin, for teaching the Greek Testament in Montrose, he had resided for some years at the university of Cambridge. In the year 1544, he returned to his native country, in the company of the commissioners who had been sent to negotiate a treaty with Henry VIII. of England. Seldom do we meet, in ecclesiastical history, with a character so amiable and interesting as that of George Wishart.Excelling all his countrymen at that period in learning, of the most persuasive eloquence, irreproachable in life, courteous and affable in manners, his fervent piety, zeal, and courage in the cause of truth, were tempered with uncommon meekness, modesty, patience, prudence, and charity.[60] Inhis tour of preaching through Scotland, he was usually accompanied by some of the principal gentry; and the people, who flocked to hear him, were ravished with his discourses. To this teacher Knox attached himself, and profited greatly by his sermons and private instructions. During the last visit which Wishart paid to Lothian, Knox waited constantly on his person, and bore the sword, which was carried before him, from the time that an attempt was made to assassinate him in Dundee. Wishart was highly pleased with the zeal of his faithful attendant, and seems to have presaged his future usefulness, at the same time that he laboured under a strong presentiment of his own approaching martyrdom. On the night on which he was apprehended by Bothwell at the instigation of the cardinal, he directed the sword to be taken from Knox; and, on the latter insisting for liberty to accompany him to Ormiston, the martyr dismissed him with this reply, “Nay, return to your bairnes,” (meaning his pupils,) “and God bless you: ane is sufficient for a sacrifice.”