The Congregation had lately received a considerable increase of strength by the accession of the former regent, the duke of Chastelherault. His eldest son, the earl of Arran, who commanded the Scots guard in France, had embraced the principles of the Reformation; understanding that the French court, which was entirely under the direction of the princes of Lorrain, intended to throw him into prison, he secretly retired to Geneva, from which he was conveyed to London by the assistance of Elizabeth’s ministers. In the month of August he came to his father at Hamilton.The representations of his son, joined with those of the English cabinet, and with his own jealousy of the designs of the queen regent, easily gained over the vacillating duke, who met with the lords of the Congregation, and subscribed their bond of confederation.[449]
Our Reformer was now called to take a share in a very delicate and important measure. When they first had recourse to arms in their own defence, thelords of the Congregation had no intention of making any alteration in the government, or of assuming the exercise of the supreme authority.[450] Even after they had adopted a more regular and permanent system of resistance to the measures of the queen regent, they continued to recognise the station which she held, presented petitions to her, and listened respectfully to the proposals which she made for removing the grounds of variance. But finding that she was fully bent upon the execution of her plan for subverting the national liberties, and that her official situation gave her great advantages in carrying on this design, they began to deliberate upon the propriety of adopting a different line of conduct. Their sovereigns were minors, in a foreign country, and under the management of persons to whose influence the evils of which they complained were principally to be ascribed. The queen dowager held the regency by the authority of parliament; and might she not be deprived of it by the same authority? In the present state of the country, it was impossible for a free and regular parliament to meet; but the majority of the nation had declared their dissatisfaction with her administration; and was it not competent for them to provide for the public safety, which was exposed to such imminent danger? These were the questions which formed the topic of frequent conversation at this time.
After much deliberation, a numerous assembly,consisting of nobles, barons, and representatives of boroughs, met at Edinburgh, on the 21st of October, 1559, to bring this important point to a solemn issue. To this assembly Knox and Willock were called; and the question being stated to them, they were required to deliver their opinions as to the lawfulness of the proposed measure. Willock, who then officiated as minister of Edinburgh, being first asked, declared it to be his judgment, founded on reason and scripture, that the power of rulers was limited; that they might be deprived of it upon valid grounds; and that the queen regent having, by fortifying Leith, and introducing foreign troops into the country, evinced a fixed determination to oppress and enslave the kingdom, might justly be divested of her authority, by the nobles and barons, as native counsellors of the realm, whose petitions and remonstrances she had repeatedly rejected. Knox assented to the opinion delivered by his brother, and added, that the assembly might, with safe consciences, act upon it, provided they attended to the three following things: First, that they did not suffer the misconduct of the queen regent to alienate their affections from due allegiance to their sovereigns, Francis and Mary; second, that they were not actuated in the measure by private hatred or envy of the queen dowager, but by regard to the safety of the commonwealth; and, third, that any sentence which they might at this time pronounce, should not preclude her re‑admission to office, if she afterwards discovered sorrow for her conduct, and a disposition tosubmit to the advice of the estates of the nation.After this, the whole assembly, having severally delivered their opinions, did, by a solemn deed, suspend the queen dowager from her authority as regent of the kingdom, until the meeting of a free parliament;[451] and, at the same time, elected a council for the management of public affairs during this interval.[452] When the council had occasion to treat of matters connected with religion, four of the ministers were appointed to assist in their deliberations.These were Knox, Willock, Goodman, and Alexander Gordon, bishop of Galloway, who had embraced the Reformation.[453]
It has been alleged by some writers, that the question respecting the suspension of the queen regent was altogether incompetent for ministers of the gospel to determine, and that Knox and Willock, by the advice which they gave on this occasion, exposed themselves unnecessarily to odium.[454] But it is not easy to see how they could have been excused in refusingto deliver their opinion, when required by those who had submitted to their ministry, upon a measure which involved a case of conscience, as well as a question of law and political right. The advice which was actually given and followed is a matter of greater consequence, than the quarter from which it came. As this rests upon principles very different from those which produced resistance to princes, and limitation on their authority, under feudal governments, and as our Reformer has been the object of much animadversion for inculcating these principles, I shall embrace the present opportunity to offer a few remarks on this interesting subject.
Among the various causes which affected the general state of society and government in Europe, during the middle ages, the influence of religion cannot be overlooked. Debased by ignorance, and fettered by superstition, the minds of men were prepared to acquiesce without examination in the claims of authority, and tamely to submit to every yoke. In whatever light we view popery, the genius of that singular system of religion will be found to be adverse to liberty. The court of Rome, while it aimed directly at the establishment of a spiritual despotism in the hands of ecclesiastics, contributed to rivet the chains of political servitude upon the people. In return for the support which princes yielded to its arrogant claims, it was content to invest them with an absolute authority over the bodies of their subjects. By the priestly unction, performed at the coronation of kings in thename of the holy see, a sacred character was understood to be imparted, which raised them to a superiority over their nobility which they did not possess according to feudal ideas, rendered their persons inviolable, and their office divine. Although the sovereign pontiffs claimed, and on different occasions exercised, the power of dethroning kings, and of absolving subjects from their allegiance; yet any attempt of this kind, when it proceeded from the people themselves, was denounced as a crime deserving the severest punishment in this world, and damnation in the next. Hence sprung the doctrine of the divine right of kings to rule independently of their people, and of passive obedience and non‑resistance to their will; under the sanction of which they were encouraged to sport with the lives and happiness of their subjects, and to indulge in the most tyrannical and wanton acts of oppression, without the dread of resistance, or of being called to an account by any power on earth. Even in countries where the people were understood to enjoy certain political privileges, transmitted from remote ages, or wrested from their princes on some favourable occasions, these principles were generally prevalent; and, availing himself of them, it was easy for an ambitious and powerful monarch to violate the rights of the people with impunity, and upon a constitution, the forms of which were friendly to popular liberty, to establish an administration completely arbitrary and despotic.
The contest between papal sovereignty and the authority of general councils, which was carried onduring the fifteenth century, elicited some of the essential principles of liberty, which were afterwards applied to political government. The revival of learning, by unfolding the principles of legislation, and modes of government in the republics of ancient Greece and Rome, gradually led to more liberal notions on this subject. But these were confined to a few, and had no influence upon the general state of society. The spirit infused by philosophy and literature is too feeble and contracted to produce a radical reform of established abuses; and learned men, proud of their own superior illumination, and satisfied with the liberty of indulging their speculations, have generally been too indifferent or too timid to attempt the improvement of the multitude. It is to the religious spirit excited during the sixteenth century, which spread rapidly through Europe, and diffused itself among all classes of men, that we are chiefly indebted for the propagation of the genuine principles of rational liberty, and the consequent amelioration of government.
Civil and ecclesiastical tyranny were so closely combined, that it was impossible for men to emancipate themselves from the latter without throwing off the former; and from arguments which established their religious rights, the transition was easy, and almost unavoidable, to disquisitions about their civil privileges. In those kingdoms in which the rulers threw off the Roman yoke, and introduced the Reformation by their authority, the influence was more imperceptible and slow; and in some of them, as inEngland, the power taken from the ecclesiastical was thrown into the regal scale, which proved so far prejudicial to popular liberty. But where the Reformation was embraced by the great body of a nation, while the ruling powers continued to oppose it, the effect was visible and immediate. The interested and obstinate support which rulers gave to the old system of error and ecclesiastical tyranny, and their cruel persecution of all who favoured the new opinions, drove their subjects to enquire into the just limits of authority and obedience. Their judgments once informed as to the rights to which they were entitled, and their consciences satisfied respecting the means which they might employ to acquire them, the immense importance of the immediate object in view, their emancipation from religious bondage, and the salvation of themselves and their posterity, impelled them to make the attempt with an enthusiasm and perseverance which the mere love of civil liberty could not have inspired.
In effecting that memorable revolution, which terminated in favour of religious and political liberty in so many nations of Europe, the public teachers of the protestant doctrine had a principal influence. By their instructions and exhortations, they roused the people to consider their rights and exert their power; they stimulated timid and wary politicians; they encouraged and animated princes, nobles, and confederated states, with their armies, against the most formidable opposition, and under the most overwhelming difficulties, until their exertions were ultimatelycrowned with success. These facts are now admitted, and this honour has at last, through the force of truth, been conceded to the religious leaders of the protestant Reformation, by philosophical writers, who had too long branded them as ignorant and fanatical.[455]
Our Reformer had caught a large portion of the spirit of civil liberty.We have already adverted to the circumstance in his education which directed his attention, at an early period, to some of its principles.[456] His subsequent studies introduced him to an acquaintance with the maxims and modes of government in the free states of antiquity; and it is reasonable to suppose that his intercourse with the republics of Switzerland and Geneva had some influence on his political creed.Having formed his sentiments independently of the prejudices arising from established laws, long usage, and commonly received opinions, his zeal and intrepidity prompted him to avow and propagate them, when others, less sanguine and resolute, would have been restrained by fear, or by despair of success.[457] Extensive observation had convinced him of the glaring perversion of government in the European kingdoms; but his principles led himto desire their reform, not their subversion. His admiration of the polity of republics, ancient or modern, was not so great or indiscriminate as to prevent him from separating the essential principles of equity and freedom which they contained, from others which were incompatible with monarchy. He was perfectly sensible of the necessity of regular government to the maintenance of justice and order, and aware of the danger of setting men loose from its salutary control. And he uniformly inculcated a conscientious obedience to the lawful commands of rulers, and respect to their persons as well as to their authority, even when they were chargeable with various mismanagements, so long as they did not break through all the restraints of law and justice, and cease to perform the great and fundamental duties of their office.