Meanwhile, the mission of Maitland to the English court was about to lead to one of the most notable compacts in the national history. At Berwick-on-Tweed, the lord James Stewart, Lord Ruthven, and three other Scottish commissioners met the Duke of Norfolk and concluded a treaty (February 27th) which was to insure the eventual triumph of the Congregation, to make Scotland a Protestant country, and at a later day a constituent part of a Greater Britain. The treaty was in effect a bond of mutual defence against France—Elizabeth having reluctantly consented that an English army should at once enter Scotland and assist the Congregation in driving the French soldiery out of the country. While her revolted subjects were thus making strong their hands against her, fortune was otherwise deserting the cause of the Regent. A great French armament, which was to have brought over a force sufficient to crush all opposition, had been driven back by a succession of storms; and she herself was already stricken with the disease which was soon to carry her off. In these circumstances there was but one course open to her—to fall back on the policy of self-defence and patient waiting on events. After one somewhat wanton expedition against Glasgow and the Hamiltons, her troops finally (March 29th) retired within the fortifications of Leith, and she herself at her special request was received into the castle of Edinburgh.
On April 4th the English and Scottish hosts joined forces at Prestonpans, and on the 6th they sat down before Leith. The spectacle was one suggestive of many reflections; English and Scots, immemorial foes, were fighting side by side against the ancient friend of the one, the ancient enemy of the other. There could not be a more memorable illustration of the saying that "events sometimes mount the saddle and ride men." Even with their united strength the allies had a formidable task before them. At the outset of the siege the English amounted to about nine thousand men, the Scots to ten thousand; but before many weeks had gone, these numbers had dwindled to a half. With this force the English commander, Lord Gray, had to besiege a town defended by four thousand trained soldiers and fortified by the most skilful engineers of the time. Two severe reverses sustained by the allies prove that in discipline and skill they were no match for the enemy. On April 14th the French sallied from the town, and, breaking through the English trenches, slew two hundred men. A combined assault on the town (May 7th) was brilliantly repulsed—the English and Scots leaving eight hundred dead and wounded in the trenches. It was not long before all three parties were sick of the contest. The Guises had their hands full at home and needed every soldier they had; Elizabeth heartily disliked the task of assisting rebel subjects and grudged every penny that was spent in it; and the Congregation had never been in a position to support a protracted war.
The death of the Regent on June 10th must have quickened the desire of the Guises for peace; for where she had failed to effect their purposes no one else was likely to succeed. Alike by her own character and gifts and by the momentous policy of which she was the agent, Mary of Lorraine is one of the remarkable figures in Scottish history. It was her misfortune—a misfortune due to her birth and connections—that she found herself from the first in direct antagonism to the natural development of the country of her adoption, and that the circumstances in which she ruled were such as to bring into prominence the least worthy traits of the proud race from which she sprang. Yet in personal appearance, as in courage and magnificence, she was the true sister of Henry of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, "the Pope and King of France." Construed to a larger and more charitable sense than that in which they were written, the words of Knox fitly enough sum up her career. She was "unhappy—to Scotland—from the first day she entered into it unto the day she finished her unhappy life."
On June 16th commissioners arrived from England and France with powers to effect an arrangement between the contending parties. From England came Cecil and Dr. Wotton, Dean of Canterbury and York; and from France, Monluc, Bishop of Valence, and Charles de Rochefoucauld, Sieur de Randan. From the beginning, the French representatives gave it to be understood that any treaty that might be made was exclusively between England and France; the Congregation were rebel subjects with whom their prince could in no wise treat. After many difficulties that more than once threatened to put an end to further negotiations, a settlement was at length reached (July 6th). The final arrangement signally proved how hopeless the Guises were of their immediate prospects in Scotland. Mary and Francis were to desist from using the arms of England; no Frenchman was henceforth to hold any important office in Scotland; the fortifications of Leith were to be demolished; and the French soldiers, with the exception of one hundred twenty, were at once to be sent home in their own country. Till the return of Mary the government was to be intrusted to twelve persons, of whom she was to appoint seven and the estates five. In the treaty no arrangement was made regarding religion; but, with the powers now placed at their disposal, there could be little doubt how the Protestant leaders would interpret the omission. Thus had Elizabeth and the Congregation gained every point for which they had striven; and their victory may be said to have determined the future, not only of Britain, but of Protestantism. So far as Scotland is concerned, the treaty of Edinburgh marks the central point of her history.
It now remained to be seen to what uses the Protestant party would put their victory. The simultaneous departure of the French and English troops relieved them from all restraint; and four days later the great deliverance was signalized by a solemn thanksgiving in the Church of St. Giles. For the effectual spreading of the Protestant doctrine, preachers were planted in various parts of the country—Knox being appointed to the principal charge in Edinburgh. But it was the approaching assembly of the estates to which all men were looking with hopes or fears, according to their desires and interests. The estates met on August 3d, but it was not till the 8th that the attendance was complete. It was to be the most important national assembly in the history of the Scottish people; and the numbers of the different classes who flocked to it showed that the momentous nature of the crisis was fully realized. Specially noteworthy was the crowd of smaller barons from all parts of the country. So unusual was the appearance of these persons that it had almost been forgotten that their right to sit as representatives dated from as far back as the reign of James I. A question raised, as to the legality of an assembly which met independently of the summons or the presence of the sovereign, was decisively set aside; and the House addressed itself to the great issues involved in the late revolution. The question of religion, as at the root of the whole controversy, took precedence of every other. The first proceeding showed the national instinct for the logical conduct of human affairs. The estates instructed the ministers to draw up a statement of Protestant doctrine, which might serve at once as a chart for their future guidance and a justification for their present and their future action. In four days the task (an easy one for Knox and his brother-ministers) was accomplished; and under twenty-five heads the estates had before them what was henceforth to be the creed of the majority of the Scottish people. Article by article the Confession was read and considered, and, after a feeble protest by the bishops of St. Andrew's, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, approved and ratified by an overwhelming majority of the estates.
The way being thus cleared, the next step was the logical conclusion of all the past action of the Protestant leaders. In three successive acts, all passed in one day, it was decreed that the national Church should cease to exist. The first act abolished the jurisdiction of the Pope; the second condemned all practices and doctrines contrary to the new creed; and the third forbade the celebration of mass within the bounds of Scotland. The penalties attached to the breach of these enactments were those approved and sanctioned by the example of every country in Christendom. Confiscation for the first offence, exile for the second, and death for the third—such were to be the successive punishments for the saying or hearing of mass.
Thus apparently had Knox and his fellow-workers attained the end of all their labors; and it is instructive to compare the history of their struggle with the experiences of other countries where the same religious conflicts had successively arisen. In Germany the terrible Peasants' War had been the direct result of Luther's revolt from Rome; and in England the ecclesiastical revolution had been followed by the religious atrocities of Henry VIII, by the anarchy under Edward VI, and by the remorseless fanaticism of Mary Tudor. While the Congregation was in the midst of its struggles with Mary of Lorraine, Philip II was dealing with heresy in Spain. How effectually he dealt with it is one of the notable chapters in the histories of nations. Here it is sufficient to recall a single fact in illustration of the relative experiences of Scotland and Spain. In 1559 Philip and his court, amid the applause of a crowd of above two hundred thousand from all parts of Castile, sanctioned with their presence the burning at Valladolid of a band of persons, mostly women, accused of the crime of heresy. In France the appearance of a new religion had evoked passions, alike among the people and their rulers, which were to give that country an evil preeminence in the ferocity of national and individual action. The chambre ardente, the Edict of Châteaubriand (1551), the massacre of Amboise (1560), the thirty years of intermittent civil war (1562-1592)—these were the events of frightful significance that mark the development of religious conflict in France. Compared with the tale of blood and confusion that has to be told of Germany, France, England, and Spain, the history of the Reformation in Scotland is a record of order and tranquillity.
What is thrust upon us by the narrative of events in Scotland is the singular moderation alike of the representatives of the old and the new religion. Heretics had been burned indeed, but the number was inconsiderable compared with that of similar victims in other countries; and, even in the day of their triumph, the Scottish Protestants, in spite of the stern threat of their legislation, were guiltless of a single execution on the ground of religion. What is still more striking is, that difference of faith begot no fanatical hate among the mass of the people. In France and Spain men forgot the ties of blood and country in the blind fury of religious zeal, but in Scotland we do not find town arrayed against town and neighbor denouncing neighbor on the ground of a different faith. That this tolerance was not due to indifference the religious history of Scotland abundantly proves. It was in the convulsions attending the change of the national faith that the Scottish nation first attained to a consciousness of itself, and the characteristics it then displayed have remained its distinctive characteristics ever since. It is precisely the combination of a fervid temper with logical thinking and temperate action that have distinguished the Scottish people in all the great crises of their history.
It soon appeared that the Protestant triumph was not so complete as it might have seemed. Those who saw furthest—and none was more keenly alive to the fact than Knox—were well aware that many a battle must yet be fought before the new temple they had built should stand secure against the assault of open enemies and equivocal friends. The inherent difficulties of the situation became speedily manifest. Mary and Francis refused to ratify the late measures—a fact, says Knox, "we little regarded or do regard." What he did regard, however, was the continued alliance and support of England; and he was now to learn that, having attained her own objects, Elizabeth was not disposed to be specially cordial in her future relations to the Protestants in Scotland. It had been for some time in the minds of the Protestant leaders that a marriage between Elizabeth and the Earl of Arran would be an excellent arrangement for both countries; and in October a commission was actually sent to make the proposal. The reply of Elizabeth was that "presently she was not disposed to marry." An important event made this rebuff additionally unwelcome: on December 5th, Francis II, the husband of Mary Stuart, unexpectedly died. Had her husband lived, Mary might have continued to live in France, which had been so long her home, and Scotland might have been left in large degree to settle its own affairs. Now the probability was that Mary would return to her own country, and with all the authority and prestige of a legitimate sovereign renew the battle that had been lost by her mother. It was, therefore, with gloomy forebodings that all sincere well-wishers to the Reformed Church in Scotland saw the close of this year of their apparent triumph.
If there were these apprehensions from enemies, there was likewise a growing alarm from the attitude of lukewarm and dubious friends. The sincerity and good faith of all who had taken part in the late revolution were about to be subjected to the most stringent of tests. By the enactments of the preceding year the ancient Church had been swept away; but the work of rearing a new edifice in its place still remained to be accomplished. With this object the Protestant ministers had been intrusted with the task of drafting a constitution for a new church which should take the place of the old. The ministers had discharged their trust, and the result of their labors was laid before the estates which met in Edinburgh on January 15, 1561.