On the 15th of December, Knox preached at the opening of the parliament, and exhorted them to begin with the affairs of religion, in which case they would find better success in their other business. The parliament ratified all the acts which had been passed in 1560, in favour of the protestant religion and against popery. New statutes of a similar kind were added. It was provided, that no prince should afterwards be admitted to the exercise of authority in the kingdom, without taking an oath to maintain theprotestant religion; and that none but protestants should be admitted to any office, with the exception of those that were hereditary or held for life. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction, exercised by the assemblies of the church, was formally ratified, and commissioners appointed to define more exactly the causes which came within the sphere of their judgment. The thirds of benefices were appointed to be paid at first hand to collectors nominated by the church, who, after paying the stipends of the ministers, were to account to the exchequer for the surplus.And the funds of provostries, prebendaries, and chaplainries were appropriated to maintain bursars in colleges.[191]
In the act ratifying the jurisdiction of the church, Knox was appointed one of the commissioners for drawing out the particular points which pertained to ecclesiastical judgment, to be presented to next meeting of parliament. The General Assembly, which met about the same time, gave him a commission, along with some others, to act for them in this matter, and, in general, to consult with the regent and council on such ecclesiastical questions as might occur after their dissolution.He was also appointed to assist the superintendent of Lothian in his visitation, and afterward to visit the churches in Kyle, Carrick, and Cunningham.[192]
During the regency of Murray there were no jars between the church and the court, nor any of thoseunpleasant complaints which had been made at every meeting of the General Assembly before that period, and which were renewed under the succeeding regents.[193] All the grievances of which they complained were not, indeed, redressed; and the provision made by law was still inadequate for the support of such an ecclesiastical establishment as the nation required, including the seminaries of education. But the regent not only received the addresses of the general assemblies in a “manner very different from that to which they had been accustomed;” but showed a disposition to grant their petitions, whenever it was in his power. It was chiefly through his influence that the favourable arrangement concerning the thirds of benefices was made; and he endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to obtain theconsent of parliament to the dissolution of the prelacies, and the appropriation of their revenues to the common fund of the church.[194]
Our Reformer had now reached that point from which he could take a calm and deliberate view of the bustling scene through which he had passed, and of the arduous struggle which he had been so long engaged in, and had at length brought to a happy termination. Papal superstition and tyranny were suppressed and abolished by law; the protestant religion was established; the supreme government of the nation was in the hands of one in whose wisdom and integrity he had the greatest confidence; the church was freed from many of those grievances under which she had hitherto groaned, and enjoyed the prospect of obtaining the redress of such as still remained. The work on which his heart had been so ardently set for such a long period, and for the success of which he had so often trembled, had prospered beyond his utmost expectation.He now congratulated himself on the prospect of being released from all burden of public affairs, and of spending the remainder of his days in religious meditations, and in preparation for that event of whose near approach he was daily admonished by the increasing infirmities of his body.[195] He even secretly cherished the wish of resigning his charge in Edinburgh, and of retiring to that privacy, from which he had beendrawn at the commencement of the Scottish Reformation. Speaking of the congregation of which he had been pastor at Geneva, he says, in one of his confidential letters, “God comfort that dispersed little flock, among whom I lived with quietness of conscience and contentment of heart; and amongst whom I would be content to end my days, if so it might stand with God’s good pleasure. For, seeing it hath pleased his majesty, above all men’s expectations, to prosper the work for the performing whereof I left that company, I would even as gladly return to them, if they stood in need of my labours, as ever I was glad to be delivered from the rage of mine enemies.I can give you no reason that I should so desire, other than that my heart so thirsteth.”[196]
But “the way of man is not in himself.” Providence had allotted him farther trials of a public nature: he was yet to see the security of the reformed religion endangered, and the country involved in another civil war, even more distressing than the former, inasmuch as the principal persons on both sides were professed protestants.
From the time that the queen was imprisoned, and the government transferred to the young prince under the regency of Murray, a considerable number of the nobility had withheld their approbation of these proceedings. The popish party were decidedly attached to Mary, and inimical to a revolution, which crushed the hopes which they had all along cherished of accomplishingthe restoration of the ancient religion. Others, though professed protestants, were induced by various motives to oppose the new government.Argyle was at this time alienated from Murray by a family quarrel.[197] The house of Hamilton followed that line of narrow and interested policy which they had adopted on former occasions of a similar kind. They were jealous lest the late settlement of the crown should invalidate the right of their chief, the duke of Chastelherault, to the succession;and they were offended that the regency, which they considered as due to him, should have been conferred on Murray.[198] No governor can gratify the expectations of all; and some of those who were early friends of the regent, or had contributed to his advancement, thought that they were not sufficiently rewarded. The very means which he found it necessary to employ, to restore tranquillity and order to the kingdom, created him enemies. During the late confusions, many parts of the country had fallen into a state of anarchy; and the northern counties and the borders presentednothing but scenes of rapine and bloodshed. It was impossible to repress these disorders without making severe examples of the most guilty;and the turbulent and licentious naturally sought the overthrow of a government by which they felt themselves overawed and restrained.[199] But the abilities of the regent enabled him to overcome these difficulties; and he was daily receiving submissions from the most powerful of the opposite party, when, on the 2d of May, 1568, the queen escaped from her confinement in Lochleven. The discontented nobles immediately joined her standard, and, having mustered a large force, avowed their determination to restore her to the exercise of that authority which she had renounced by constraint. This formidable insurrection was defeated by the promptitude of the regent; and, in consequence of the battle of Langside, Mary was driven into England, and her party broken. Elizabeth having procured herself to be chosen umpire between the two parties, the conferences were protracted during so long a period, and the conduct of the English court was so equivocal and contradictory, that the friends of Mary were encouraged to renew their attempts to restore her by force of arms.But although the duke of Chastelherault returned from France with a large sum of money contributed by the popish princes, and came into Scotland in the character of lieutenant of the queen,[200] the regent,by his vigilance, and his vigorous measures, prevented any insurrection, and preserved the kingdom in obedience to the young king’s authority.
Despairing to accomplish their darling object during his life, the partisans of Mary resolved to cut off Murray by private means.During the year 1568, two persons were employed to assassinate him; but the design was discovered and prevented.[201] This did not hinder new machinations. Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a nephew of the archbishop of St Andrews, undertook to perpetrate the deed. He was one of the prisoners taken at the battle of Langside;but, after being arraigned, condemned, and brought out to execution, he had his life given him by the regent, and was soon after set at liberty along with the other prisoners.[202] It is said that he was actuated by revenge, on account of an injury which he had received, by detaining one of his forfeited estates, or by the cruel manner in which his wife had been dispossessed of it.[203] Whether this wasreally the case, or whether it was afterwards alleged to diminish the odium of his crime, and turn it away from his party, cannot perhaps be now certainly determined. But it does not appear, that any part of the regent’s conduct towards him was such as to afford the slightest alleviation of a crime, in the commission of which he burst the ties of gratitude, as well as of humanity and justice.On the other hand, there is ample proof that he was incited to make the attempt by the political party with which he was connected.[204] Having formed his resolution,he deliberately followed the regent in his progress to Glasgow, Stirling, and Linlithgow; and, finding an opportunity in the last of these places, shot him through the body with a musket‑ball. The wound proved mortal, and the regent died the same evening.While some of his friends, who stood round his bed, lamented the excessive lenity which he had shown to his enemies, and particularly to his murderer, he replied, with a noble and christian spirit, that nothing would ever make him repent of an act of clemency.[205]
The consternation which is usually produced by the fall of a distinguished leader, was absorbed in the deep distress which the tidings of the regent’s murder spread through the nation. The common people, who had experienced the beneficial effects of his short administration, to a degree altogether unprecedented in the country, felt as if each had lost a father, and loudly demanded vengeance upon the authors of the parricide. Many who had envied or hated him during his life, were now forward to do justice to his virtues. Those who had not been able to conceal their satisfaction on the first intelligence of his death, became ashamed of the indecent exultation which they had so imprudently expressed. The Hamiltons were anxious to clear themselves from the imputation of a crime which they saw to be universally detested. They dismissed the murderer, who was glad to escapefrom ignominy by condemning himself to perpetual banishment.The only one of his crimes for which the archbishop of St Andrews afterwards expressed contrition before his execution, was his accession to the murder of the regent.[206] Nor were these feelings confined to Scotland; the sensation was general through England, and the expressions of grief and condolence from that country evinced the uncommon esteem in which he was held by all ranks.
It was the happiness of the regent, that, in his youth, he fell into the company of men, who cultivated his vigorous understanding, gave a proper direction to his activity, and instilled into his mind the principles of religion and virtue. His early adoption of the reformed sentiments, the steadiness with which he adhered to them, the uniform correctness of his morals, his integrity, sagacity, and enterprising but cool courage, soon placed him in the first rank among those who embarked in the struggle for the reformationof religion, and the maintenance of national liberties, and secured to him their cordial and unbounded confidence. The honours which Mary conferred on him were not too great for the services which he performed; and had she continued to act by his advice, those measures would have been avoided which brought on her ruin. He was repeatedly placed in a situation which would have tempted the ambition of persons possessed of far inferior abilities; yet he showed no disposition to grasp at the supreme authority. When he accepted the regency, it was in compliance with the decided and uncorrupted choice of the acting majority in the kingdom, pointing him out as the fittest person for occupying that high station; and his conduct, in one of the most delicate and embarrassing situations in which a governor was ever placed, showed that his countrymen were not mistaken in their choice. He united, in no ordinary degree, those qualities, which are rarely combined in the same individual, and which form the character of an accomplished prince. Excelling equally in the arts of war and peace, he reduced the country to obedience by his military skill and valour, and preserved it in a state of tranquillity and order by the wise and impartial administration of justice. Successful in all his warlike enterprises, he never once tarnished the laurels of victory by cruelty or unnecessary rigour to the vanquished. He knew how to maintain the authority of the laws, and to bridle the licentious, by salutary severity, and at the same time to temper the rigour of justice by the interpositionof mercy. He used to sit personally in the courts of judicature, and exerted himself to obtain for all the subjects an easy and expeditious decision of litigated causes.His hospitality, his unostentatious charity, his uncommon liberality to the learned, and the anxiety he showed to confer his favours in the manner least calculated to hurt their feelings, have been celebrated by one who had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with these amiable traits of his character.[207] Nor has the breath of calumny, which has attempted in many ways to blast his reputation, ever insinuated that he oppressed or burdened the public, during his regency, in order to enrich himself or his family. Add to all these qualities, his exemplary piety, the only source of genuine and exalted virtue. His family was so regulated as to resemble a church rather than a court. Not a profane or lewd word was to be heard from any of his domestics. A chapter of the bible was always read at table after dinner and supper; and it was his custom, on such occasions, to require his chaplain, or some learned man present, to give his opinion upon the passage, for his own instruction and that of his family.“A man truly good,” says archbishop Spotswood, “and worthy to be ranked among the best governors that this kingdom hath enjoyed, and, therefore, to this day honoured with the title of The Good Regent.”[208]
This may perhaps be deemed, by some readers, an improper digression. But though it had been lessconnected with the subject of this work than it is, and though the familiarity and co‑operation between the regent and the Reformer had been less intimate and cordial than they really were, I could not have denied myself the satisfaction of paying a small tribute to the memory of one of the greatest men of his age, who has been traduced and vilified in a most unjustifiable manner, and whose character has been drawn with unfavourable, and, in my opinion, with unfair colours, by the most moderate and impartial of our historians. All that I have attempted, is to sketch the more prominent features of his character. That he was faultless, I am far from wishing to insinuate; but the principal charges which have been brought against him, I consider as either irrelevant, or unproved, or greatly exaggerated. That his exaltation to the highest dignity in the state which a subject could enjoy, produced no unfavourable change on his temper and behaviour, is what none can be prepared to affirm; but I have not seen the contrary established. The confidence which he reposed in his friends was great, and he was inclined to pay much deference to their advice; but that he became the dupe of worthless favourites, and fell by listening to their flattery, and refusing to hearken to wholesome advice, and not by the treachery of his friends and the malice of his enemies,are assertions which have been repeated upon the authority of a single witness, unsupported by facts, and capable of being disproved.[209]