Protestants, as well as papists, were offended with the freedom of this sermon, and some who had been most familiar with the preacher now shunned his company. Flatterers were not wanting to run to the queen, and inform her that John Knox had preached against her marriage. After surmounting all opposition to her measures, and managing so successfully the haughty and independent barons of her kingdom, Mary was incensed to think that there should yet be one man of obscure condition, who ventured to condemn her proceedings; and as she could not tame his stubbornness, she determined to punish his temerity. He was ordered instantly to appear before her. Lord Ochiltree, with several gentlemen, accompanied him to the palace; but the superintendent of Angus, Erskine of Dun, was the only person allowed to go with him into the royal presence.
Her majesty received him in a very different manner from what she had done at Lochleven. Never had prince been handled (she passionately exclaimed)as she was; she had borne with him in all his rigorous speeches against herself and her uncles—she had sought his favour by all means—she had offered unto him audience whenever he pleased to admonish her; “and yet,” said she, “I cannot be quit of you. I vow to God I shall be once revenged!” On pronouncing these words with great violence, she burst into a flood of tears, which interrupted her speech. When the queen had composed herself, Knox proceeded calmly to make his defence. Her grace and he had (he said) at different times been engaged in controversy, and he never before had perceived her offended with him. When it should please God to deliver her from the bondage of error in which she had been trained up, through want of instruction in the truth, he trusted that her majesty would not find the liberty of his tongue offensive. Out of the pulpit, he believed, few had occasion to complain of him; but there he was not his own master, but was bound to obey Him who commanded him to speak plainly, and to flatter no flesh on the face of the earth.
“But what have you to do with my marriage?” demanded the queen. He was proceeding to state the extent of his commission as a preacher, and the reasons which led him to touch on that delicate subject; but she interrupted him by repeating her question, “What have ye to do with my marriage? Or what are you in this commonwealth?”—“A subject born within the same, madam,” replied the Reformer, piqued by the last question, and by the contemptuous tone in which it was proposed. “And albeit I beneither earl, lord, nor baron in it, yet has God made me (how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the same. Yea, madam, to me it appertains no less to forewarn of such things as may hurt it, if I foresee them, than it doth to any of the nobility; for both my vocation and conscience require plainness of me. And, therefore, madam, to yourself I say that which I spake in public place: Whensoever the nobility of this realm shall consent that ye be subject to an unfaithful husband, they do as much as in them lieth to renounce Christ, to banish his truth from them, to betray the freedom of this realm, and perchance shall in the end do small comfort to yourself.” At these words, Mary began again to sob and weep with great bitterness. The superintendent, who was a man of mild and gentle spirit, tried to mitigate her grief and resentment; he praised her beauty and her accomplishments; and told her, that there was not a prince in Europe who would not reckon himself happy in gaining her hand. During this scene, the severe and inflexible mind of the Reformer displayed itself. He continued silent, and with unaltered countenance, until the queen had given vent to her feelings. He then protested, that he never took delight in the distress of any creature; it was with great difficulty that he could see his own boys weep when he corrected them for their faults, and far less could he rejoice in her majesty’s tears; but seeing he had given her no just reason of offence, and had only discharged his duty, he was constrained, though unwillingly, to sustain her tears, rather thanhurt his conscience, and betray the commonwealth by his silence.
This apology inflamed the queen still more: she ordered him instantly to leave her presence, and to wait the signification of her pleasure in the adjoining room. There he stood as “one whom men had never seen;” all his friends, lord Ochiltree excepted, being afraid to show him the smallest countenance. In this situation he addressed himself to the court‑ladies, who sat in their richest dress in the chamber: “O fair ladies, how plesing war this lyfe of yours, if it sould ever abyde, and then, in the end, that we might pas to hevin with all this gay gear! But fye upon that knave Death, that will come whidder we will or not!” Having engaged them in conversation, by a mixture of seriousness and raillery, he passed the time, till the superintendent came, and informed him that he was allowed to go home until her majesty had taken further advice. The queen insisted to have the judgment of the lords of Articles, whether the words he had used in the pulpit were not actionable; but she was persuaded by her counsellors to abandon the idea of a prosecution.“And so that storme quietit in appearance, bot nevir in the hart.”[112]
No expressions are sufficiently strong to describe the horror which many feel at the monstrous inhumanity of Knox, in remaining unmoved, while “youth, beauty, and royal dignity,”[113] were dissolved in tearsbefore him. Enchanting, surely, must the charms of the queen of Scots have been, and ironhearted the Reformer who could resist the impression of them, when they continue to this day to exercise such a sway over the hearts of men, that even grave and serious authors, not addicted to the language of gallantry and romance, protest, that they cannot read of the tears which she shed on this occasion, without feeling an irresistible inclination to weep along with her. There may be some, however, who, knowing how much real misery there is in the world, are not disposed to waste their feelings unnecessarily, and who are of opinion, that there was not much to commiserate in the condition of the queen, nor to reprobate in the conduct of the Reformer. Considering that she had been so fortunate in her measures, and had found the nobility so ready to gratify all her wishes, the passion by which she suffered herself to be transported was extravagant, and her tears must have been those of anger more than of grief. On the other hand, when we consider that Knox was at this time deserted by his friends, and stood almost alone in resisting the will of a princess, who accomplished her measures chiefly by caresses and tears, we may be disposed to form a more favourable idea of his conduct and motives. We behold not, indeed, the enthusiastic lover, mingling his tears with those of his mistress, and vowing to revenge her wrongs; northe man of nice sensibility, who loses every other consideration in the gratification of his feelings; but we behold, what is more rare, the stern patriot—the rigid reformer, who, in the discharge of his duty, and in a public cause, can withstand the tide of tenderness as well as the storm of passion. There have been times when such conduct was regarded as the proof of a superior mind; and the man who, from such motives, “hearkened not to the wife of his bosom, nor knew his own children,” has been the object not of censure, but of admiration, in pagan as well as sacred story.
Fertur pudicæ conjugis osculum,
Parvosque natos, ut capitis minor,
Ab se removisse, et virilem
Torvus humi posuisse vultum.
While Knox lay under the displeasure of the court, and had lost the confidence of his principal friends, his enemies judged it a favourable opportunity for attacking him in (what had been universally allowed to be irreproachable) his moral conduct. At the very time that he was engaged in scrutinizing the scandal against Methven, and inflicting upon him the highest censure of the church, it was alleged that he was himself guilty of the same crime. Euphemia Dundas, an inhabitant of Edinburgh, inveighing one day, in the presence of a circle of her acquaintance, against the protestant doctrine and ministers, said, among other things, that John Knox had been a common whoremonger all his life, and that, within a fewdays past, he “was apprehendit and tane furth of ane killogie with ane common hure.” This might have been passed over by Knox and the church, as an effusion of popish spleen or female scandal; but the recent occurrence at Jedburgh, the situation in which the Reformer at present stood with the court, the public manner in which the charge bad been brought, and the specification of a particular instance, seemed to them to justify and call for a legal investigation. Accordingly, the clerk of the General Assembly, on the 18th of June, gave in a formal representation and petition to the town council, praying, that the woman might be brought before them, and the matter examined; that, if the accusation was found true, the accused might be punished with every degree of merited rigour; and that, if false, the accuser might be dealt with according to the demerit of her offence.She was called, and, appearing before the council, flatly denied that she had ever used any such words; although Knox’s procurator afterwards produced respectable witnesses to prove that she had spoken them.[114]