The regent died on the evening of Saturday, the 23d of January, 1570; and the intelligence of his murder was conveyed early next morning to Edinburgh. It is impossible to describe the anguish which the Reformer felt on this occasion. The loss of a noble and endeared friend was the least evil which he had to deplore. Of all the Scottish nobility, he placed the greatest confidence in Murray’s attachment to religion; and his conduct after his elevation to the regency, had served to heighten the good opinion which he formerly entertained of him.He looked upon his death as the greatest calamity which could befall the nation, and as a forerunner of many evils.[210] When the shock produced by the melancholy tidings had subsided, the first thought that rushed into his mind was, that he had himself been the instrument of obtaining, from his clemency, a pardon to the man who had become his murderer;a thought which naturally produced a very different impression on him from what it did on the mind of the dying regent.[211]
In his sermon that day, he introduced the melancholy subject; and after saying, that God in his great mercy raised up pious rulers, and took them away in his displeasure, on account of the sins of a nation, he thus poured out the sorrows of his heart:“O Lord, in what misery and confusion found he this realm! To what rest and quietness now by his labours, suddenly he brought the same, all estates, but especially the poor commons, can witness. Thy image, O Lord, did so clearly shine in that personage, that the devil, and the people to whom he is prince, could not abide it; and so to punish our sins and our ingratitude, (who did not rightly esteem so precious a gift,) thou hast permitted him to fall, to our great grief, in the hands of cruel and traitorous murderers.He is at rest, O Lord; we are left in extreme misery.”[212]
Only a few days before this, and after the plan of the murder was fully concerted, Gavin Hamilton, abbot of Kilwinning, applied to Knox to intercede with the regent in behalf of some of his kinsmen, who were confined for practising against the government.He signified his readiness to do all in his power for the relief of any of that family who were willing to own the authority of the king, but entreated the abbot not to abuse him by employing his services, if his relations intended to do any mischief to the regent;[213] for “I protest,” said he, “beforeGod, who is the only witness now betwixt us, that if there be any thing attempted, by any of that surname, against the person of that man, in that case I discharge myself to you and them for ever.”After the assassination, the abbot sent to desire another interview; but Knox refused to see him, and desired the messenger to say, “I have not now the regent to make suit unto for the Hamiltons.”[214]
At this time there was handed about a fabricated account of a pretended conference held by the late regent with lord Lindsay, Wishart of Pittarrow, the tutor of Pitcur, James Macgill, and Knox; in which they were represented as advising him to set aside the young king, and place the crown on his own head. To give it the greater air of credibility, the modes of expression peculiar to each of the persons were carefully imitated in the speeches put into their mouths. The evident design of circulating it at this time, was to lessen the odium of the murder, and the veneration of the people for the memory of Murray; but it was universally regarded as an impudent and gross forgery.The person who fabricated it was Thomas Maitland, a young man of talents, but corrupted by his brother, the secretary, who had previously engaged himself to the queen’s party, and was suspected of having had a deep hand in the plot for assassinating the regent.[215]
On the day on which the weekly conference was held in Edinburgh, the same person slipped into thepulpit a schedule, containing words to this effect: “Take up now the man whom you accounted another God, and consider the end to which his ambition hath brought him.” It was Knox’s turn to preach that day. On entering the pulpit he took up the paper, supposing it to be a note requesting the prayers of the congregation for a sick person, and having read it, laid it aside without any apparent emotion. But towards the conclusion of his sermon, after deploring the loss which the church and commonwealth had recently sustained, and declaring the account of the conference, which had been circulated, to be false and calumnious, he said that there were persons who rejoiced at the treasonable murder, and scrupled not to make it the subject of their merriment; and particularly, there was one present who had thrown into the pulpit a paper exulting over an event which was the cause of grief to all good men: “that wicked man, whosoever he be, shall not go unpunished, and shall die where there shall be none to lament him.” Maitland, after he went home, said to his sister, that the preacher was raving, when he spake in such a manner of a person who was unknown to him; but she, suspecting that her brother had written the line, reproved him, saying with tears, that none of that man’s denunciations were wont to prove idle.Spotswood (who had his information personally from the mouth of that lady) says, that Maitland died in Italy, “having no known person to attend him.”[216]
On Tuesday the 14th of February, the regent’s corpse was brought from the palace of Holyroodhouse, and interred in the south aisle of the collegiate church of St Giles. Before the funeral, Knox preached a sermon on these words, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”Three thousand persons were dissolved in tears before him, while he described the virtues of the regent, and bewailed his loss.[217] Buchanan paid a tribute to the memory of his deceased patron, by writing the inscription placed on his monument, with that expressive simplicity and brevity which are dictated by genuine grief.[218] A convention of the nobility was held after the funeral, at which it was resolved to avenge his death; but different opinions were entertained as to the mode of doing this, and the commons complained loudly of the remissness with which the resolution was prosecuted. The General Assembly, at their first meeting, testifiedtheir detestation of the crime, by ordering the assassin to be publicly excommunicated in all the chief towns of the kingdom, and by appointing the same process to be used against all who should afterwards be convicted of accession to the murder.[219]
During the sitting of the convention, Knox received a number of letters from his acquaintances in England, expressive of their high regard for the character of the regent, and their sorrow at so grievous a loss.[220] One of these was from Christopher Goodman, and another from John Willock, who either had not complied with the invitation of the General Assembly, or had again returned to England.[221] The other letters were from Englishmen, who had no immediateconnexion with Scotland. Dr Laurence Humphrey[222] urged Knox to write a memoir of the deceased. Had he done this, his intimate acquaintance with the regent would, no doubt, have enabled him to communicate many particulars of which we must now be content to remain ignorant; but though he had been disposed to undertake this task, the state of his health would have prevented its execution.
The grief which he indulged on account of this mournful event, and the confusions which followed it, preyed upon his spirits, and injured his health.[223] In the month of October, he had a stroke of apoplexy, which affected his speech to a considerable degree. On this occasion, his enemies exulted, and circulated the most exaggerated tales respecting his disorder.The report ran through Scotland and England, that John Knox would never preach or speak more,—that his face was turned into his neck,—that he was become the most deformed creature ever seen,—that he was actually dead.[224] A most unequivocal proofof the high consideration in which he was held, which our Reformer received in common with other great men of his age![225]