The hour of dinner afforded an occasion for breakingoff this singular conversation.At taking leave of her majesty, the Reformer said, “I pray God, madam, that you may be as blessed within the commonwealth of Scotland, as ever Deborah was in the commonwealth of Israel.”[48]
I have been the more minute in the narrative of this curious conference, because it affords the most satisfactory refutation of the charge, that Knox treated Mary with rudeness and disrespect. For the same reason I shall lay before the reader a circumstantial account of the subsequent interviews between them, from which we shall perceive that, though the Reformer addressed her with a plainness to which crowned heads are seldom accustomed, he never lost sight of that respect which was due to the person of his sovereign, nor of that decorum which became his own character.
The interview between the queen and the Reformer excited great speculation, and different conjectures were formed as to its probable consequences. The catholics, whose hopes now depended solely on the queen, were alarmed, lest Knox’s rhetoric should have shaken her constancy.The protestants cherished the expectation that she would be induced to attend the protestant sermons, and that her religious prejudices would gradually abate.[49] Knox indulged no such flattering expectations. He had made it his study, during the late conference, to discover the real character of the queen; and when some of his confidentialfriends asked his opinion of her, he told them that he was very much mistaken if she was not proud, crafty, obstinately wedded to the popish church, and averse to all means of instruction.[50] Writing to Cecil, he says, “The queen neyther is, neyther shal be of our opinion; and, in very dead, her whole proceedings do declair that the cardinalle’s lessons ar so deaplie printed in her heart, that the substance and the qualitie are like to perishe together. I wold be glad to be deceaved, but I fear I shal not.In communication with her, I espyed such craft as I have not found in such aige. Since, hath the court been dead to me and I to it.”[51]
He resolved, therefore, vigilantly to watch her proceedings, and to give timely warning of any danger which might result from them to the reformed interest; and the more that he perceived the zeal of the protestant nobles to cool, and their jealousy to be laid asleep by the winning arts of the queen, the more frequently and loudly did he sound the alarm. Vehement and harsh as his expressions often were—violent, seditious, and insufferable, as his sermons and prayers have been pronounced to be, I have no hesitation in saying, that, as the public peace was never disturbed by them, so they were useful to the public safety, and a principal means of warding off for a time those confusions in which the country was afterwards involved, and which brought on the ultimate ruinof the infatuated queen. His uncourtly and rough manner was not, indeed, calculated to gain upon her mind, (nor is there any reason to think that an opposite manner would have had this effect,) and his admonitions often irritated her; but they obliged her to act with greater reserve and moderation; and they operated, to an indescribable degree, in arousing and keeping awake the zeal and the fears of the nation, which, at that period, were the two great safeguards of the protestant religion in Scotland. We may form an idea of the effect produced by his pulpit‑orations, from the account of the English ambassador, who was one of his constant hearers.“Where your honour,” says he, in a letter to Cecil, “exhorteth us to stoutness, I assure you the voice of one man is able, in an hour, to put more life in us, than six hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears.”[52]
The Reformer was not ignorant that some of his friends thought him too severe in his language, nor was he always disposed to vindicate the expressions which he employed. Still, however, he was persuaded that the times required the utmost plainness; and hewas afraid that snares lurked under the smoothness which was recommended and practised by courtiers. Cecil having given him an advice on this head in one of his letters, Knox replied: “Men deliting to swym betwix two waters have often compleaned upon my severitie.I do fear that that which men terme lenitie and dulcenes, do bring upon themselves and others more fearful destruction, than yit hath ensewed the vehemency of any preacher within this realme.”[53]
That abatement of zeal which he had dreaded from “the holy water of the court,” soon began to appear among the protestant leaders. The general assemblies of the church were a great eye‑sore to the queen, who was very desirous to have them put down. At the first General Assembly held after her arrival, the courtiers, through her influence, absented themselves, and when challenged for this, began to dispute the propriety of such conventions without her majesty’s pleasure. On this point, there was sharp reasoning between Knox and Maitland, who was now made secretary of state. “Take from us the liberty of assemblies, and take from us the gospel,” said the Reformer. “If the liberty of the church must depend upon her allowance or disallowance, we shall want not only assemblies, but also the preaching of the gospel.” It was proposed that the Book of Discipline should be ratified by the queen; but this was keenly opposed by the secretary. “How many of those thatsubscribed that book will be subject to it?” said he, scoffingly. “All the godly,” it was answered. “Will the duke?” said he. “If he will not,” replied lord Ochiltree, “I wish that his name were scraped, not only out of that book, but also out of our number and company; for to what end shall men subscribe, and never mean to keep word of that which they promise?” Maitland said, that many subscribed it, in fide parentum, implicitly. Knox replied, that the scoff was as untrue as it was unbecoming; for the book was publicly read, and its different heads discussed, for a number of days, and no man was required to subscribe what he did not understand. “Stand content,” said one of the courtiers; “that book will not be obtained.”[—]“And let God require the injury which the commonwealth shall sustain, at the hands of those who hinder it,” replied the Reformer.[54]
He was still more indignant at their management in settling the provision for the ministers of the church. Hitherto they had lived chiefly on the benevolence of their hearers, and many of them had scarcely the means of subsistence; but repeated complaints having obliged the privy council to take up the affair, they came at last to a determination, that the ecclesiastical revenues should be divided into three parts;that two of these should be given to the ejected popish clergy; and that the third part should be divided between the court and the protestant ministry![55] The personsappointed to “modify the stipends,”[56] were disposed to gratify the queen, and her demands were readily answered, while the sums allotted to the ministers were as ill paid as they were paltry and inadequate. “Weall!” exclaimed Knox, when he heard of this disgraceful arrangement, “if the end of this ordour, pretendit to be takin for sustentatioun of the ministers, be happie, my judgement failes me. I sie twa pairtis freelie gevin to the devill, and the third mon be devyded betwix God and the devill. Who wald have thocht, that when Joseph reulled in Egypt, his brethren sould have travellit for victualles, and have returned with emptie sackes unto thair families?O happie servands of the devill, and miserabill servants of Jesus Christ, if efter this lyf thair wer not hell and heavin!”[57] At a conference held on this subject,Maitland complained of the ingratitude of the ministers, who did not acknowledge the queen’s liberality to them. “Assuredly,” replied Knox, with a derisive smile, “such as receive any thing of the queen are unthankful, if they acknowledge it not; but whether the ministers be of that rank or not, I greatly doubt. Has the queen better title to that which she usurps, be it in giving to others, or in taking to herself, than such as crucified Christ had to divide his garments among them? Let the papists who have the two parts, some that have their thirds free, and some that have gotten abbacies and feu‑lands, thank the queen; the poor preachers will not yet flatter for feeding their bellies. To your dumb dogs, formerly ten thousand was not enough; but to the servants of Christ, that painfully preach his evangell, a thousand pound! how can that be sustained?”[—]“These words,” he himself tells us, “were judged proud and intolerable, and engendered no small displeasure to the speaker.”[58]
Knox gave vent to his feelings on this subject the more freely, as his complaints could not be imputed to personal motives; for his own stipend, though moderate, was liberal when compared with those of the most of his brethren. From the time of his last return to Scotland, until the conclusion of the war, he had been indebted to the liberality of individuals for the support of his family. After that period, helodged in the house of David Forrest, a burgess of Edinburgh, from which he removed to the lodging which had belonged to Durie, abbot of Dunfermline. As soon as he began to preach statedly in the city, the town council assigned him an annual stipend of two hundred pounds, which he was entitled to receive quarterly; and they also paid his house‑rent, and his board, during the time that he had resided with Forrest. Subsequent to the settlement made by the privy council, it would seem that he received, at least, a part of his income from the common fund allotted to the ministers of the church; but the good town had still an opportunity of testifying their generosity, by supplying the deficiencies of the legal allowance.Indeed, the uniform attention of the town council to his external support and accommodation, was honourable to them, and deserves to be recorded to their commendation.[59]
In the beginning of the year 1562, he went to Angus to preside in the election and admission of John Erskine of Dun, as superintendent of Angus and Mearns.That respectable baron was one of those whom the first General Assembly declared “apt and able to minister;”[60] and having already contributed in different ways to the advancement of the Reformation, he now devoted himself to the service of the church, in a laborious employment, at a time when she stood eminently in need of the assistance of allthe learned and pious. Knox had formerly presided at the installation of John Spotswood, as superintendent of Lothian.[61]
The influence of our Reformer appears from his being employed on different occasions to act as umpire and mediator in disputes of a civil nature among the protestants.He was frequently requested to intercede with the town council in behalf of such of the inhabitants as had subjected themselves to punishment by their disorderly conduct.[62] Soon after his return to Scotland, he had composed a domestic variance between the earl and countess of Argyle.[63] In the year 1561, he had been employed as arbitrator in a difference between Archibald, earl of Angus, and his brothers.[64] And he was now urged by the earl of Bothwell to assist in removing a deadly feud which subsisted between him and the earl of Arran.He was averse to interfere in this business, which had already baffled the authority of the privy council;[65] but at the desire of friends, he yielded, and, after considerable pains, had the satisfaction of bringing the parties to an amicable interview, at which they mutually promised to bury their former differences. But all the fair hopes which he had formed from this reconciliation were speedily blasted. For,in the course of a few days, Arran came to him in great agitation, with the information that Bothwell had endeavoured to engage him in a conspiracy, to seize upon the person of the queen, and to kill the prior of St Andrews, Maitland, and the rest of her counsellors. Knox does not seem to have given much credit to this information; he even endeavoured to prevent Arran from making it public; in this, however, he did not succeed, and both noblemen were imprisoned.It soon after became evident that Arran was lunatic, but the fears of the courtiers show that they did not altogether disbelieve his accusation, and that they suspected that Bothwell had formed a design of which his future conduct proved him not incapable.[66]