HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

BY
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
NEW EDITION.
TORONTO:
ROSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY,
60 YORK STREET.
1878.

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.

HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.

CONDITION OF SCOTLAND TO THE END OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

In the preceding view of the rise and decay of Spain, I have sought to exhibit the successive steps by which what was formerly one of the greatest nations of the earth, was broken, and cast down from its high estate. As we look back on that scene, the picture is, indeed, striking. A country rich in all natural productions, inhabited by a brave, a loyal, and a religious people, removed, too, by its geographical position from the hazards of European revolutions, did, by the operation of those general causes which I have indicated, suddenly rise to unparalleled grandeur; and then, without the occurrence of any new combination, but by a mere continuance of the same causes, fall with an equal velocity. Yet, these vicissitudes, strange and startling as they appear, were perfectly regular. They were the legitimate consequence of a state of society, in which the spirit of protection had reached its highest point, and in which, every thing being done for the people, nothing was done by the people. Whenever this happens, there may be great political progress, but there can be no really national progress. There may be accessions of territory, and vast increase of fame and of power. There may be improvements in the practice of administration, in the management of finances, in the organization of armies, in the art and theory of war, in the tricks of diplomacy, and in those various contrivances by which one nation is able to outwit and insult another. So far, however, from this benefiting the people, it will injure them in two different ways. In the first place, by increasing the reputation of the ruling classes, it encourages that blind and servile respect which men are too apt to feel for those who are above them, and which, wherever it has been generally practised, has been found fatal to the highest qualities of the citizen, and therefore to the permanent grandeur of the nation. And, in the second place, it multiplies the resources of the executive government, and thus renders the country unable, as well as unwilling, to correct the errors of those who are at the head of affairs. Hence, in Spain, as in all countries similarly circumstanced, it was at the very moment when things were most prosperous at the surface, that they were most rotten at the foundation. In presence of the most splendid political success, the nation hastened to its downfall, and the crisis was fast approaching, in which, the whole edifice being overturned, nothing would be left, except a memorable warning of the consequences which must ensue, when the people, giving themselves up to the passions of superstition and loyalty, abdicate their own proper functions, forego their own responsibility, renounce their highest duties, and degrade themselves into passive instruments to serve the will of the Church and the throne.

Such is the great lesson taught by the history of Spain. From the history of Scotland, we may gather another lesson, of a different, and yet of a similar, kind. In Scotland, the progress of the nation has been very slow, but, on the whole, very sure. The country is extremely barren; the executive government has, with rare exceptions, been always weak; and the people have never been burdened with those feelings of loyalty which circumstances had forced upon the Spaniards. Certainly, the last charge that will be brought against the Scotch, is that of superstitious attachment to their princes.[1] We, in England, have not always been very tender of the persons of our sovereigns, and we have occasionally punished them with what some consider excessive severity. With this, we have been frequently taunted by the more loyal nations of the Continent; and, in Spain in particular, our conduct has excited the greatest abhorrence. But, if we compare our history with that of our northern neighbours, we must pronounce ourselves a meek and submissive people.[2] There have been more rebellions in Scotland than in any other country; and the rebellions have been very sanguinary, as well as very numerous. The Scotch have made war upon most of their kings, and put to death many. To mention their treatment of a single dynasty, they murdered James I. and James III. They rebelled against James II. and James VII. They laid hold of James V., and placed him in confinement. Mary, they immured in a castle, and afterwards deposed. Her successor, James VI., they imprisoned; they led him captive about the country, and on one occasion attempted his life. Towards Charles I., they showed the greatest animosity, and they were the first to restrain his mad career. Three years before the English ventured to rise against that despotic prince, the Scotch boldly took up arms, and made war on him. The service which they then rendered to the cause of liberty it would be hard to overrate; but the singular part of the transaction was, that having afterwards got possession of the person of Charles, they sold him to the English for a large sum of money, of which they, being very poor, had pressing need. Such a sale is unparalleled in history; and although the Scotch might have plausibly alleged that this was the only gain they had derived, or ever could derive, from the existence of their hereditary prince, still the event is one which stands alone; it was unprecedented; it has never been imitated; and its occurrence is a striking symptom of the state of public opinion, and of the feelings of the country in which it was permitted.

While, however, in regard to loyalty, the opposition between Scotland and Spain is complete, there is, strange to say, the most striking similarity between those countries in regard to superstition. Both nations have allowed their clergy to exercise immense sway, and both have submitted their actions, as well as their consciences, to the authority of the Church. As a natural consequence, in both countries, intolerance has been, and still is, a crying evil; and in matters of religion, a bigotry is habitually displayed, discreditable indeed to Spain, but far more discreditable to Scotland, which has produced many philosophers of the highest eminence, who would willingly have taught the people better things, but who have vainly attempted to remove from the national mind that serious blemish which mars its beauty, and tends to neutralize its many other admirable qualities.

Herein lies the apparent paradox, and the real difficulty, of Scotch history. That knowledge should not have produced the effects which have elsewhere followed it; that a bold and inquisitive literature should be found in a grossly superstitious country, without diminishing its superstition; that the people should constantly withstand their kings, and as constantly succumb to their clergy; that while they are liberal in politics, they should be illiberal in religion; and that, as a natural consequence of all this, men who, in the visible and external department of facts and of practical life, display a shrewdness and a boldness rarely equalled, should nevertheless, in speculative life, and in matters of theory, tremble like sheep before their pastors, and yield assent to every absurdity they hear, provided their Church has sanctioned it; that these discrepancies should coexist, seems at first sight a strange contradiction, and is surely a phenomenon worthy of our careful study. To indicate the causes of this anomaly, and to trace the results to which the anomaly has led, will be the business of the remaining part of this volume; and although the investigation will be somewhat lengthy, it will not, I hope, be considered prolix, by those who recognise the importance of the inquiry, and are aware how completely it has been neglected, even by those who have written most fully on the history of the Scottish nation.

In Scotland, as elsewhere, the course of events has been influenced by its physical geography; and by this I mean, not only its own immediate peculiarities, but also its relation to adjoining countries. It is close to Ireland; it touches England; and by the contiguity of the Orkney and Shetland Isles, it was eminently exposed to the attacks of that great nation of pirates, which for centuries inhabited the Scandinavian peninsula. Considered merely by itself, it is mountainous and sterile; nature has interposed such obstacles, that it was long impossible to open regular communications between its different parts, which, indeed, in regard to the Highlands, was not effected till after the middle of the eighteenth century.[3] Finally, and this, as we shall presently see, was a matter of great importance, the most fertile land in Scotland is in the south, and was, therefore, constantly ravaged by the English borderers. Hence, the accumulation of wealth was hindered; the growth of towns was discouraged, by the serious hazards to which they were liable; and it was impossible to develop that municipal spirit, which might have existed, if the districts most favoured by nature had been situated in the north of Scotland, instead of in the south. If the actual state of things had been reversed, so that the Highlands were in the south,[4] and the Lowlands in the north, it can hardly be doubted, that, after the cessation in the thirteenth century of the great Scandinavian invasions, the most fertile parts of Scotland, being comparatively secure, would have been the seat of towns, which the active spirit of the people would have caused to prosper, and the prosperity of which would have introduced a new element into Scotch affairs, and changed the course of Scotch history. This, however, was not to be; and, as we have to deal with events as they actually are, I will now endeavour to trace the consequences of the physical peculiarities which have just been noticed; and by coördinating their results, I will, so far as I am able, show their general meaning, and the way in which they have shaped the national character.

The earliest fact with which we are acquainted respecting the history of Scotland, is the Roman invasion under Agricola, late in the first century. But neither his conquests, nor those of his successors, made any permanent impression. The country was never really subjugated, and nothing was effected except a military occupation, which, in spite of the erection of numerous forts, walls, and ramparts, left the spirit of the inhabitants unbroken. Even Severus, who, in the year 209, undertook the last and most important expedition against Scotland, does not appear to have penetrated beyond the Firth of Moray;[5] and directly he retired, the natives were again in arms, and again independent. After this, nothing was attempted upon a scale large enough to give a chance of success. Indeed, the Romans, far from being equal to such an effort, were themselves deteriorating. In their best days, their virtues were the virtues of barbarians, and even those they were now about to lose. From the beginning, their scheme of life was so one-sided and imperfect, that the increase of wealth, which improves the civilization of really civilized countries, was to the Romans an irreparable mischief; and they were corrupted by luxury, instead of being refined by it. In our time, if we compare the different nations of Europe, we find that the richest are also the most powerful, the most humane, and the most happy. We live in that advanced state of society, in which wealth is both the cause and the effect of progress, while poverty is the fruitful parent of weakness, of misery, and of crime. But the Romans, when they ceased to be poor, began to be vicious. So unstable was the foundation of their greatness, that the very results which their power produced, were fatal to the power itself. Their empire gave them wealth, and their wealth overthrew their empire. Their national character, notwithstanding its apparent strength, was in truth of so frail a texture, that it was ruined by its own development. As it grew, it dwarfed. Hence it was, that, in the third and fourth centuries, their hold on mankind visibly slackened. Their authority being undermined, other nations, of course, stepped in; so that the inroads of those strange tribes which came pouring from the north, and to whose appearance the final catastrophe is often ascribed, were at best the occasion, but by no means the cause, of the fall of the Roman Empire. Towards that great and salutary event, every thing had long been pointing. The scourgers and oppressors of the world, whom a false and ignorant sympathy has invested with noble qualities which they never possessed, had now to look to themselves; and when, after receding on all sides, they, in the middle of the fifth century, withdrew their forces from the whole of Britain, they merely executed a movement, which a train of circumstances, continued through several generations, had made inevitable.

It is at this point that we begin to discern the operation of those physical and geographical peculiarities which I have mentioned as influencing the fortunes of Scotland. The Romans, gradually losing ground, the proximity of Ireland caused repeated attacks from that fertile island, whose rich soil and great natural advantages gave rise to an exuberant, and therefore a restless, population. An overflow, which, in civilized times, is an emigration, is, in barbarous times, an invasion. Hence the Irish, or Scotti as they were termed, established themselves by force of arms in the west of Scotland, and came into collision with the Picts, who occupied the eastern part. A deadly struggle ensued, which lasted four centuries after the withdrawal of the Romans, and plunged the country into the greatest confusion. At length, in the middle of the ninth century, Kenneth M'Alpine, king of the Scotti, gained the upper hand, and reduced the Picts to complete submission.[6] The country was now united under one rule; and the conquerors, slowly absorbing the conquered, gave their name to the whole, which, in the tenth century, received the appellation of Scotland.[7]

But the kingdom was to have no rest. For, in the mean time, circumstances, which it would be tedious to relate, had raised the inhabitants of Norway to be the greatest maritime power in Europe. The use which that nation of pirates made of their strength, forms another and a very important link in the history of Scotland, and moreover illustrates the immense weight, which, in an early period of society, should be assigned to mere geographical considerations. The nearest land to the centre of the long coast of Norway is the Shetland Isles, whence it is an easy sail to the Orkneys. The northern pirates naturally seized these small, but, to them, most useful islands, and, as naturally, made them intermediate stations, from which they could conveniently pillage the coasts of Scotland. Being constantly reinforced from Norway, they, in the ninth and tenth centuries, advanced from the Orkneys, made permanent settlements in Scotland itself, and occupied not only Caithness, but also great part of Sutherland. Another body of them got possession of the Western Islands; and as Skye is only separated from the mainland by a very narrow channel, these pirates easily crossed over, and fixed themselves in Western Ross.[8] From their new abodes, they waged incessant and destructive war against every district within their reach; and, keeping a large part of Scotland in constant alarm, they, for about three centuries, prevented the possibility of its social improvement. Indeed, that unhappy country was never free from the dangers of Norwegian invasion, until the failure of the last great attack, in 1263, when Haco left Norway with a prodigious armament, which he further strengthened by reinforcements from the Orkneys and Hebrides. Scotland could offer but little resistance. Haco, with his allies, sailed along the western coast to the Mull of Kentire, wasted the country with fire and sword, took Arran and Bute, entered the Firth of Clyde, suddenly fell upon Loch Lomond, destroyed all the property on its shores and on its islands, ravaged the whole county of Stirling, and threatened to descend with all his force upon Ayrshire. Fortunately, the inclemency of the weather broke up this great expedition, and scattered or destroyed the entire fleet.[9] After its dispersal, the course of affairs in Norway prevented the attempt from being renewed; and danger from that quarter being over, it might have been hoped that Scotland would now enjoy peace, and would have leisure to develop the natural resources which she possessed, particularly those in the southern and more favoured districts.

This, however, was not to be. For, scarcely were the attacks from Norway at an end, when those from England began. Early in the thirteenth century, the lines of demarcation which separated Normans from Saxons, were, in our country, becoming so obliterated, that in many cases it was impossible to distinguish them.[10] By the middle of the same century, the two races were fused into one powerful nation; and, as that nation had a comparatively feeble neighbour, it was certain that the stronger people would try to oppress the weaker.[11] In an ignorant and barbarous age, military success is preferred to all other kinds of fame; and the English, greedy for conquest, set their eyes upon Scotland, which they were sure to invade at the first opportunity. That Scotland was near, made it tempting; that it was believed to be defenceless, made the temptation irresistible. In 1290, Edward I. determined to avail himself of the confusion into which Scotland was thrown by disputes respecting the succession of the crown. The intrigues which followed, need not be related; it is enough to say, that, in 1296, the sword was drawn, and Edward invaded a country which he had long desired to conquer. But he little recked of the millions of treasure, and the hundreds of thousands of lives, which were to be squandered, before that war was over.[12] The contest that ensued was of unexampled length and severity; and in its sad course, the Scotch, notwithstanding their heroic resistance, and the victories they occasionally gained, had to endure every evil which could be inflicted by their proud and insolent neighbour. The darling object of the English, was to subjugate the Scotch; and if anything could increase the disgrace of so base an enterprise, it would be that, having undertaken it, they ignominiously failed.[13] The suffering, however, was incalculable, and was aggravated by the important fact, that it was precisely the most fertile part of Scotland which was most exposed to the English ravages. This, as we shall presently see, produced some very curious results on the national character; and for that reason, I will, without entering into many details, give a slight summary of the more immediate consequences of this long and sanguinary struggle.

In 1296, the English entered Berwick, the richest town Scotland possessed, and not only destroyed all the property, but slew nearly all the inhabitants.[14] They then marched on to Aberdeen and Elgin; and so completely desolated the country, that the Scotch, flying to the mountains, and stripped of their all, had no resource left but to wage from their native fastnesses a war similar to that which their savage ancestors, twelve centuries earlier, had conducted against the Romans.[15] In 1298, the English again broke in, burnt Perth and St. Andrews, and ravaged the whole territory south and west.[16] In 1310, they invaded Scotland by the eastern march, and carrying off such provisions as were left, caused so terrible a dearth, that the people were forced to feed on horses and other carrion.[17] All over southern Scotland, both east and west, the inhabitants were now reduced to a horrible condition, being for the most part houseless and starved. In 1314, made desperate by their state, they rallied for a moment, and, in the battle of Bannockburn, gloriously defeated their oppressors. But their unrelenting enemy was at hand, and pressed them so hard, that, in 1322, Bruce, in order to baffle an English invasion, was obliged to lay waste all the districts south of the Firth of Forth; the people taking refuge, as before, in the mountains.[18] This time, therefore, when Edward II. reached Edinburgh, he plundered nothing, because, the country being a desert, there was nothing to plunder; but, on his return, he did what he could, and meeting with some convents, which were the only signs of life that he encountered, he fell upon them, robbed the monasteries of Melrose and Holyrood, burnt the abbey of Dryburgh, and slew those monks who, from age or disease, were unable to escape.[19] In 1336, the next king, Edward III., equipped a numerous army, devastated the Lowlands, and great part of the Highlands, and destroyed every thing he could find, as far as Inverness.[20] In 1346, the English overran the districts of Tweeddale, the Merse, Ettrick, Annandale, and Galloway;[21] and in 1355, Edward, in a still more barbarous inroad, burnt every church, every village, and every town he approached.[22] And scarcely were these frightful losses somewhat repaired, when another storm burst upon the devoted land. In 1385, Richard II. traversed the southern counties to Aberdeen, scattering destruction on every side, and reducing to ashes the cities of Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Perth, and Dundee.[23]

By these disasters, the practice of agriculture was every where interrupted, and in many places ceased for several generations.[24] The labourers either fled, or were murdered; and there being no one to till the ground, some of the fairest parts of Scotland were turned into a wilderness, overgrown with briers and thickets. Between the invasions, a few of the inhabitants, taking courage, issued from the mountains, and raised wretched huts in the place of their former abodes. But, even then, they were pursued to their very doors by wolves, searching for food, and maddened with hunger. If they escaped from these famished and ferocious animals, they and their families were exposed to a danger still more horrible. For, in those terrible days, when famine stalked abroad, despair perverted the souls of men, and drove them to new crime. There were cannibals in the land; and we have it on contemporary authority, that a man and his wife, who were at length brought to justice, subsisted during a considerable period on the bodies of children, whom they caught alive in traps, devouring their flesh, and drinking their blood.[25]

Thus the fourteenth century passed away. In the fifteenth century, the devastations of the English became comparatively rare; and although the borders were the scene of constant hostilities,[26] there is no instance, since the year 1400, of any of our kings invading Scotland.[27] An end being put to those murderous expeditions, which reduced the country to a desert, Scotland drew breath, and began to recover her strength.[28] But, though the material losses were gradually repaired; though the fields were again cultivated, and the towns rebuilt, there were other consequences, which were less easy to remedy, and from whose effects the people long smarted. These were inordinate power of the nobles, and the absence of the municipal spirit. The strength of the nobles, and the weakness of the citizens, are the most important peculiarities of Scotland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and they, as I am about to show, were directly encouraged by the ravages committed by the English troops. We shall, moreover, see that this combination of events increased the authority of the clergy, weakened the influence of the intellectual classes, and made superstition more prevalent than it would otherwise have been. It is in this way, that in Scotland, as in all other countries, every thing is linked together; nothing is casual or accidental; and the whole march of affairs is governed by general causes, which, owing to their largeness and remoteness, often escape attention, but which, when once recognized, are found to be marked by a simplicity and uniformity, which are the invariable characteristics of the highest truths that the mind of man has reached.

The first circumstance favourable to the authority of the nobles, was the structure of the country. Mountains, fens, lakes, and morasses, which even the resources of modern art have only recently made accessible supplied the great Scottish chieftains with retreats, in which they could with impunity defy the power of the crown.[29] The poverty of the soil also, made it difficult for armies to find means of subsistence; and from this cause alone, the royal troops were often unable to pursue the lawless and refractory barons.[30] During the fourteenth century, Scotland was constantly ravaged by the English; and in the intervals of their absence, it would have been a hopeless undertaking for any king to try to repress such powerful subjects, since he would have had to march through districts so devastated by the enemy, that they no longer yielded the common necessaries of life. Besides this, the war with the English lessened the authority of the crown, absolutely as well as relatively. Its patrimony, lying in the south, was incessantly wasted by the borderers, and before the middle of the fourteenth century, greatly deteriorated in value.[31] In 1346, David II. fell into the hands of the English, and during his captivity of eleven years, the nobles carried all before them, and affected, says an historian, the style and title of princes.[32] The longer the war with England continued, the more these consequences were felt; so that before the close of the fourteenth century, a few of the leading Scotch families had raised themselves to such preëminence, that it was evident, either that a deadly struggle must ensue between them and the crown, or else that the executive government would have to abdicate its most essential functions, and leave the country a prey to these headstrong and ferocious chiefs.[33]

At this crisis, the natural allies of the throne would have been the citizens and free burgesses, who in most European countries were the eager and resolute opponents of the nobles, whose licentious habits interfered not only with their trade and manufactures, but also with their personal liberty. Here again, however, the long war with England was favourable to the aristocracy of Scotland. For, as the invaders ravaged the southern parts of Scotland, which were also the only tolerably fertile parts, it was impossible that towns should flourish in the places which nature had appointed for them. There being no large cities, there was no asylum for the citizens, and there could be no municipal spirit. There being no municipal spirit, the crown was deprived of that great resource, which enabled the English kings to curtail the power of the nobles, and to punish a lawlessness which long impeded the progress of society.

During the middle ages, the Scotch towns were so utterly insignificant, that but few notices have been preserved of them; contemporary writers concentrating their attention upon the proceedings of the nobles and clergy. Respecting the people, who found shelter in such miserable cities as then existed, our best accounts are very imperfect; it is, however, certain that, during the long English wars, the inhabitants usually fled at the approach of the invaders, and the wretched hovels in which they lived were burned to the ground.[34] Hence the population acquired a fluctuating and vagabond character, which prevented the formation of settled habits of industry, and thus took away one reason which men have for congregating together. This applied more especially to the southern Lowlands; for the north, there were other evils equally threatening. The ferocious Highlanders, who lived entirely by plunder, were constantly at hand; and to them were not unfrequently added the freebooters of the Western Isles. Any thing which bore even the semblance of wealth, was an irresistible excitement to their cupidity. They could not know that a man had property, without longing to steal it; and, next to stealing, their greatest pleasure was to destroy.[35] Aberdeen and Inverness were particularly exposed to their assaults; and twice during the fifteenth century, Inverness was totally consumed by fire, besides having to pay at other times a heavy ransom, to save itself from a similar fate.[36]

Such insecurity[37] both on the north and on the south, made peaceful industry impossible in any part of Scotland. No where could a town be built, without being in danger of immediate destruction. The consequence was, that, during many centuries, there were no manufactures; there was hardly any trade; and nearly all business was conducted by barter.[38] Some of the commonest arts were unknown. The Scotch were unable to make even the arms with which they fought. This, among such a warlike people, would have been a very profitable labour; but they were so ignorant of it, that, early in the fifteenth century, most of the armour which they wore was manufactured abroad, as also were their spears, and even their bows and arrows; and the heads of these weapons were entirely imported from Flanders.[39] Indeed, the Flemish artizans supplied the Scotch with ordinary farming implements, such as cart-wheels and wheel-barrows, which, about the year 1475, used to be regularly shipped from the Low Countries.[40] As to the arts which indicate a certain degree of refinement, they were then, and long afterwards, quite out of the question.[41] Until the seventeenth century, no glass was manufactured in Scotland,[42] neither was any soap made there.[43] Even the higher class of citizens would have deemed windows absurd in their wretched abodes;[44] and as they were alike filthy in their persons as in their houses, the demand for soap was too small to induce any one to attempt its manufacture.[45] Other branches of industry were equally backward. In 1620, the art of tanning leather was for the first time introduced into Scotland;[46] and it is stated, on apparently good authority, that no paper was made there until about the middle of the eighteenth century.[47]

In the midst of such general stagnation, the most flourishing towns were, as may be easily supposed, very thinly peopled. Indeed, men had so little to do, that if they had collected in large numbers, they must have starved. Glasgow is one of the oldest cities in Scotland, and is said to have been founded about the sixth century.[48] At all events, in the twelfth century, it was, according to the measure of that age, a rich and prosperous place, enjoying the privilege of holding both a market and a fair.[49] It had also a municipal organization, and was governed by its own provosts and baillies.[50] Yet, even this famous town had no kind of trade before the fifteenth century, when the inhabitants began to cure salmon, and export it.[51] That was the only branch of industry with which Glasgow was acquainted. We need not, therefore, be surprised at hearing, that so late as the middle of the fifteenth century, the entire population did not exceed fifteen hundred persons, whose wealth consisted of some small cattle, and a few acres of ill-cultivated land.[52]

Other cities, though bearing a celebrated name, were equally backward at a still more recent period. Dunfermline is associated with many historic reminiscences; it was a favourite residence of Scotch kings, and many Scotch parliaments have been held there.[53] Such events are supposed to confer distinction; but the illusion vanishes, when we inquire more minutely into the condition of the place where they happened. In spite of the pomp of princes and legislators, Dunfermline, which at the end of the fourteenth century was still a poor village, composed of wooden huts,[54] had, by the beginning of the seventeenth century, advanced so slowly that its whole population, including that of its wretched suburbs, did not exceed one thousand persons.[55] For a Scotch town, that was a considerable number. About the same time, Greenock, we are assured, was a village consisting of a single row of cottages, tenanted by poor fishermen.[56] Kilmarnock, which is now a great emporium of industry and of wealth, contained, in 1668, between five and six hundred inhabitants.[57] And, to come down still lower, even Paisley itself, in the year 1700, possessed a population which, according to the highest estimate, did not amount to three thousand.[58]

Aberdeen, the metropolis of the north, was looked up to as one of the most influential of the Scotch towns, and was not a little envied during the Middle Ages, for its power and importance. These, however, like all other words, are relative, and mean different things at different periods. Certainly, we shall not be much struck by the magnitude of that city, when we learn, from calculations made from its tables of mortality, that so late as 1572, it could only boast of about two thousand nine hundred inhabitants.[59] Such a fact will dispel many a dream respecting the old Scotch towns, particularly if we call to mind that it refers to a date, when the anarchy of the Middle Ages was passing away, and Aberdeen had for some time been improving. That city—if so miserable a collection of persons deserves to be termed a city—was, nevertheless, one of the most densely peopled places in Scotland. From the thirteenth century to the close of the sixteenth, no where else were so many Scotchmen assembled together, except in Perth, Edinburgh, and possibly in Saint Andrews.[60] Respecting Saint Andrews, I have been unable to meet with any precise information;[61] but of Perth and Edinburgh, some particulars are preserved. Perth was long the capital of Scotland, and after losing that preëminence, it was still reputed to be the second city in the kingdom.[62] Its wealth was supposed to be astonishing; and every good Scotchman was proud of it, as one of the chief ornaments of his country.[63] But, according to an estimate recently made by a considerable authority in these matters, its entire population, in the year 1585, was under nine thousand.[64] This will surprise many readers; though, considering the state of society at that time, the real wonder is, not that there were so few, but that there were so many. For, Edinburgh itself, notwithstanding the officials and numerous hangers-on, which the presence of a court always brings, did not contain, late in the fourteenth century, more than sixteen thousand persons.[65] Of their general condition, a contemporary observer has left us some account. Froissart, who visited Scotland, and records what he saw, as well as what he heard, gives a lamentable picture of the state of affairs. The houses in Edinburgh were mere huts, thatched with boughs; and were so slightly put together, that when one of them was destroyed, it only took three days to rebuild it. As to the people who inhabited these wretched hovels, Froissart, who was by no means given to exaggeration, assures us, that the French, unless they had seen them, could not have believed that such destitution existed, and that now, for the first time, they understood what poverty really was.[66]

After this period, there was, no doubt, considerable improvement; but it was very slow, and even late in the sixteenth century, skilled labour was hardly known, and honest industry was universally despised.[67] It is not, therefore, surprising, that the citizens, poor, miserable, and ignorant, should frequently purchase the protection of some powerful noble by yielding to him the little independence that they might have retained.[68] Few of the Scotch towns ventured to elect their chief magistrate from among their own people; but the usual course was, to choose a neighbouring peer as provost or baillie.[69] Indeed, it often happened that his office became hereditary, and was looked upon as the vested right of some aristocratic family.[70] To the head of that family, every thing gave way. His authority was so incontestable, that an injury done even to one of his retainers was resented, as if it had been done to himself.[71] The burgesses who were sent to parliament, were completely dependent on the noble who ruled the town. Down to quite modern times, there was in Scotland no real popular representation. The so-called representatives were obliged to vote as they were ordered; they were, in fact, delegates of the aristocracy; and as they possessed no chamber of their own, they sat and deliberated in the midst of their powerful masters, by whom they were openly intimidated.[72]

Under these circumstances, it would have been idle for the crown to have expected aid from a body of men who themselves had no influence, and whose scanty privileges existed only on sufferance. But there was another class, which was extremely powerful, and to which the Scotch kings naturally turned. That class was the clergy; and the interest which both parties had in weakening the nobles, caused a coalition between the church and the throne, against the aristocracy. During a long period, and indeed until the latter half of the sixteenth century, the kings almost invariably favoured the clergy, and increased their privileges in every way they could. The Reformation dissolved this alliance, and gave rise to new combinations, which I shall presently indicate. But while the alliance lasted, it was of great use to the clergy, by imparting to their claims a legitimate sanction, and making them appear the supporters of order and of regular government. The result, however, clearly proved that the nobles were more than equal to the confederacy which opposed them. Indeed, looking at their enormous power, the only wonder is, that the clergy could have prolonged the contest as they did; since they were not actually overthrown until the year 1560. That the struggle should have been so arduous, and should have extended over so considerable a period, is what, on a superficial view, no one could have expected. The reason of this, I shall now endeavour to explain; and I shall, I trust, succeed in proving, that in Scotland there was a long train of general causes, which secured to the spiritual classes immense influence, and which enabled them, not only to do battle with the most powerful aristocracy in Europe, but to rise up, after what seemed their final defeat, fresh and vigorous as ever, and eventually to exercise, as Protestant preachers, an authority nowise inferior to that which they had wielded as Catholic priests.

Of all Protestant countries, Scotland is certainly the one where the course of affairs has for the longest period been most favourable to the interests of superstition. How these interests were encouraged during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I shall hereafter relate. At present, I purpose to examine the causes of their early growth, and to show the way in which they were not only connected with the Reformation, but gave to that great event some peculiarities which are extremely remarkable, and are diametrically opposed to what happened in England.

If the reader will bear in mind what I have elsewhere stated,[73] he will remember that the two principal sources of superstition are ignorance and danger; ignorance keeping men unacquainted with natural causes, and danger making them recur to supernatural ones. Or, to express the same proposition in other words, the feeling of veneration, which, under one of its aspects, takes the form of superstition, is a product of wonder and of fear;[74] and it is obvious that wonder is connected with ignorance, and that fear is connected with danger.[75] Hence it is, that whatever in any country increases the total amount of amazement, or whatever in any country increases the total amount of peril, has a direct tendency to increase the total amount of superstition, and therefore to strengthen the hands of the priesthood.

By applying these principles to Scotland, we shall be able to explain several facts in the history of that country. In the first place the features of its scenery offer a mark contrast to those of England, and are much more likely, among an ignorant people, to suggest effective and permanent superstitions. The storms and the mists, the darkened sky flashed by frequent lightning, the peals of thunder reverberating from mountain to mountain, and echoing on every side, the dangerous hurricanes, the gusts sweeping the innumerable lakes with which the country is studded, the rolling and impetuous torrent flooding the path of the traveller and stopping his progress, are strangely different to those safer and milder phenomena, among which the English people have developed their prosperity, and built up their mighty cities. Even the belief in witchcraft, one of the blackest superstitions which has ever defaced the human mind, has been affected by these peculiarities; and it has been well observed, that while, according to the old English creed, the witch was a miserable and decrepit hag, the slave rather than the mistress of the demons which haunted her, she, in Scotland, rose to the dignity of a potent sorcerer, who mastered the evil spirit, and, forcing it to do her will, spread among the people a far deeper and more lasting terror.[76]

Similar results were produced by the incessant and sanguinary wars to which Scotland was exposed, and especially by the cruel ravages of the English in the fourteenth century. Whatever religion may be in the ascendant, the influence of its ministers is invariably strengthened by a long and dangerous war, the uncertainties of which perplex the minds of men, and induce them, when natural resources are failing, to call on the supernatural for help. On such occasions, the clergy rise in importance; the churches are more than usually filled; and the priest, putting himself forward as the exponent of the wishes of God, assumes the language of authority, and either comforts the people under their losses in a righteous cause, or else explains to them that those losses are sent as a visitation for their sins, and as a warning that they have not been sufficiently attentive to their religious duties; in other words, that they have neglected rites and ceremonies, in the performance of which the priest himself has a personal interest.

No wonder, therefore, that in the fourteenth century, when the sufferings of Scotland were at their height, the clergy flourished more than ever; so that as the country became poorer, the spiritual classes became richer in proportion to the rest of the nation. Even in the fifteenth, and first half of the sixteenth century, when industry began somewhat to advance, we are assured that notwithstanding the improvement in the position of laymen, the whole of their wealth put together, and including the possessions of all ranks, was barely equal to the wealth of the Church.[77] If the hierarchy were so rapacious and so successful during a period of comparative security, it would be difficult to overrate the enormous harvest they must have reaped in those earlier days, when danger being much more imminent, hardly any one died without leaving something to them; all being anxious to testify their respect towards those who knew more than their fellows, and whose prayers could either avert present evil, or secure future happiness.[78]

Another consequence of these protracted wars was, that a more than ordinary proportion of the population embraced the ecclesiastical profession, because in it alone there was some chance of safety: and the monasteries in particular were crowded with persons who hoped, though frequently in vain, to escape from the burnings and slaughterings to which Scotland was exposed. When the country, in the fifteenth century, began to recover from the effects of these ravages, the absence of manufactures and of commerce, made the Church the best avenue to wealth;[79] so that it was entered by peaceful men for the purpose of security, and by ambitious men as the surest means of achieving distinction.

Thus it was, that the want of great cities, and of that form of industry which belongs to them, made the spiritual classes more numerous than they would otherwise have been; and what is very observable is, that it not only increased their number, but also increased the disposition of the people to obey them. Agriculturists are naturally, and by the very circumstances of their daily life, more superstitious than manufacturers, because the events with which they deal are more mysterious, that is to say, more difficult to generalize and predict.[80] Hence it is, that, as a body, the inhabitants of agricultural districts pay greater respect to the teachings of their clergy than the inhabitants of manufacturing districts. The growth of cities has, therefore, been a main cause of the decline of ecclesiastical power; and the fact that, until the eighteenth century, Scotland had nothing worthy of being called a city, is one of many circumstances which explain the prevalence of Scotch superstition, and the inordinate influence of the Scotch clergy.

To this, we must add another consideration of great moment. Partly from the structure of the country, partly from the weakness of the Crown, and partly from the necessity of being constantly in arms to repel foreign invaders, the predatory habits incidental to an early state of society were encouraged, and consequently the reign of ignorance was prolonged. Little was studied, and nothing was known. Until the fifteenth century, there was not even an university in Scotland, the first having been founded at St. Andrews in 1412.[81] The nobles, when they were not making war upon the enemy, occupied themselves in cutting each other's throats, and stealing each other's cattle.[82] Such was their ignorance, that, even late in the fourteenth century, there is said to be no instance of a Scotch baron being able to sign his own name.[83] And as nothing approaching to a middle class had been yet formed, we may from this gain some idea of the amount of knowledge possessed by the people at large.[84] Their minds must have been immersed in a darkness which we can now barely conceive. No trades, or arts, being practised which required skill, or dexterity, there was nothing to exercise their intellects. They consequently remained so stupid and brutal, that an intelligent observer, who visited Scotland in the year 1360, likens them to savages, so much was he struck by their barbarism and their unsocial manners.[85] Another writer, early in the fifteenth century, uses the same expression; and classing them with the animals which they tended, he declares that Scotland is fuller of savages than of cattle.[86]

By this combination of events, and by this union of ignorance with danger, the clergy had, in the fifteenth century, obtained more influence in Scotland than in any other European country, Spain alone excepted. And as the power of the nobles had increased quite as rapidly, it was natural that the Crown, completely overshadowed by the great barons, should turn for aid to the Church. During the fifteenth century, and part of the sixteenth, this alliance was strictly preserved;[87] and the political history of Scotland is the history of a struggle by the kings and the clergy against the enormous authority of the nobles. The contest, after lasting about a hundred and sixty years, was brought to a close in 1560, by the triumph of the aristocracy, and the overthrow of the Church. With such force, however, had the circumstance just narrated, engrained superstition into the Scotch character, that the spiritual classes quickly rallied, and, under their new name of Protestants, they became as formidable as under their old name of Catholics. Forty-three years after the establishment of the Reformation in Scotland, James VI. ascended the throne of England, and was able to array the force of the southern country against the refractory barons of the northern. From that moment the Scotch aristocracy began to decline; and the equipoise to the clergy being removed, the Church became so powerful, that, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the most effectual obstacle to the progress of Scotland; and even now it exercises a sway which is incomprehensible to those who have not carefully studied the whole chain of its antecedents. To trace with minuteness the long course of affairs which has led to this unfortunate result, would be incompatible with the object of an Introduction, whose only aim it is to establish broad and general principles. But, to bring the question clearly before the mind of the reader, it will be necessary that I should give a slight sketch of the relation which the nobles bore to the clergy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and of the way in which their relative positions, and their implacable hatred of each other, brought about the Reformation. By this means, we shall perceive, that the great Protestant movement, which, in other countries, was democratic, was in Scotland aristocratic. We shall also see, that, in Scotland, the Reformation, not being the work of the people, has never produced the effects which might have been expected from it, and which it did produce in England. It is, indeed, but too evident, that, while in England Protestantism has diminished superstition, has weakened the clergy, has increased toleration, and, in a word, has secured the triumph of secular interests over ecclesiastical ones, its result in Scotland has been entirely different; and that, in that country, the Church, changing its form, without altering its spirit, not only cherished its ancient pretensions, but unhappily retained its ancient power; and that, although that power is now dwindling away, the Scotch preachers still exhibit, whenever they dare, an insolent and domineering spirit, which shows how much real weakness there yet lurks in the nation, where such extravagant claims are not immediately silenced by the voice of loud and general ridicule.

Footnotes:

[1] One of their own historians complacently says, ‘but the Scots were seldom distinguished for loyalty.’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 199, edit. 1819. See also p. 366. To the same effect, Brodie (History of the British Empire, Edinburgh, 1822, vol. i. p. 388): ‘The little respect paid to royalty is conspicuous in every page of Scottish history.’ Or, as Wilkes expressed himself in the House of Commons, ‘Scotland seems, indeed, the natural foyer of rebellion, as Egypt is of the plague.’ Parliamentary History, vol. xix. p. 810, London, 1814; and Nimmo (History of Stirlingshire, Edinburgh, 1777, p. 219): ‘Never was any race of monarchs more unfortunate than the Scottish. Their reigns were generally turbulent and disastrous, and their own end often tragical.’

[2] Indeed, a well-known Scotchman of the seventeenth century, scornfully says of the English, ‘such is the obsequiousness, and almost superstitious devotion of that nation towards their prince.’ Baillie's Letters, vol. i. p. 204, edit. Laing, Edinburgh, 1841. This, however, was written in 1639, since which we have effectually wiped off that reproach. On the other hand, an English writer of the seventeenth century, indignantly, though with evident exaggeration, imputes to the Scotch that ‘forty of their kings have been barbarously murdered by them; and half as many more have either made away with themselves, for fear of their torturing of them, or have died miserably in strait imprisonment.’ Account of Scotland in 1670, in Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 140, edit. Park, 4to, 1810. Compare two curious passages in Shields' Hind let loose, 1687, pp. 8, 9, 15.

[3] In England, the travelling was bad enough; in Scotland, it was far worse. Morer, stating what he saw in 1689, says ‘Stage-coaches they have none; yet there are a few Hackney's at Edinburgh, which they may hire into the country upon urgent occasions. The truth is, the roads will hardly allow 'em those conveniences, which is the reason that their gentry, men and women, chuse rather to use their horses.’ Morer's Account of Scotland, London, 1702, p. 24.

As to the northern parts, we have the following account, written in Inverness, between 1726 and 1730. ‘The Highlands are but little known even to the inhabitants of the low country of Scotland, for they have ever dreaded the difficulties and dangers of travelling among the mountains; and, when some extraordinary occasion has obliged any one of them to such a progress, he has, generally speaking, made his testament before he set out, as though he were entering upon a long and dangerous sea-voyage, wherein it was very doubtful if he should ever return.’ Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, edit. London, 1815, vol. i. p. 4. Between 1720 and 1730, military roads were cut through parts of the Highlands, but they were ‘laid down by a practical soldier, and destined for warlike purposes, with scarcely any view towards the ends for which free and peaceful citizens open up a system of internal transit,’ Burton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 255. See also Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 36. This is confirmed by the fact, that even between Inverness and Edinburgh, ‘until 1755, the mail was conveyed by men on foot.’ Account of Inverness-shire, in M^cCulloch's British Empire, London, 1847, vol. i. p. 299; to which I may add, that in Anderson's Essay on the Highlands, Edinburgh, 1827, pp. 119, 120, it is stated, that ‘A postchaise was first seen in Inverness itself in 1760, and was, for a considerable time, the only four-wheeled carriage in the district.’ As to the communications in the country about Perth, see Penny's Traditions of Perth, pp. 131, 132, Perth, 1836; and as to those from Aberdeen to Inverness, and from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, see Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. ii. pp. 269, 270, London, 4to, 1818.

The history of the improvement of the roads during the latter half of the eighteenth century, has never been written; but it is of the greatest importance for its intellectual results, in causing national fusion, as well as for its economical results, in helping trade. Some idea may be formed of the extraordinary energy displayed by Scotland in this matter, by comparing the following passages: Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. pp. 494, 865, 939, vol. iii. pp. 599, 799; Crawfurd's History of the Shire of Renfrew, part ii. pp. 128, 160; Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, pp. 245, 246; Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 109, 210, 367, 430, 496; vol. ii. p. 498; vol. iii. pp. 331, 352, 353; vol. iv. p. 313; vol. v. pp. 128, 234, 235, 315, 364, 365; vol. vi. pp. 107, 154, 180, 458; vol. vii. pp. 135, 251, 275, 299, 417; vol. viii. pp. 81, 243, 344, 345, 541; vol. ix. pp. 414, 530; vol. x. pp. 221, 237, 238, 466, 618; vol. xi. pp. 127, 380, 418, 432, 522, 541; vol. xii. p. 59; vol. xiii. pp. 42, 141, 488, 542, 663; vol. xiv. pp. 217, 227, 413, 443, 466, 506; vol. xv. pp. 54, 88, 276; vol. xvi. p. 120; vol. xvii. pp. 5, 267, 297, 377, 533; vol. xviii. p. 309; vol. xx. p. 156.

[4] I use the word Highlands, in the common, though improper, sense of including all Scotland from the Pentland Firth to the beginning of the mountains, a few miles north of Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, and Dundee. All such distinctions are necessarily somewhat vague, because the boundaries of nature are never clearly marked. Compare Macky's Scotland, p. 124, London, 1732, with Anderson's Guide to the Highlands, Edinburgh, 1847, pp. 17, 18.

[5] Browne (History of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 33) says that ‘he traversed the whole of North Britain, from the wall of Antoninus to the very extremity of the island.’ The same thing is stated in Pennant's Scotland, vol. i. p. 90. Neither of these writers quote their authority for this; but they probably relied on a passage in Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. iv. p. 94. ‘Neque tamen desideratis quinquaginta millibus (ut scribit Dion) prius ab incœpto destiterunt, quam ad finem insulæ penetrassent.’ I believe, however, that Scotch antiquaries are now agreed that this is wrong, as Chalmers was one of the first to perceive. See his Caledonia, vol. i. p. 187; a very valuable and learned, but unhappily ill-arranged, book, and written in a style which is absolutely afflicting. See also Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, 4to, 1860, p. 14.

[6] The history of Scotland, in this period, is in great confusion, and perhaps will never be recovered. For the statements made in the text, I have chiefly used the following authorities: Fordun's Scotichronicon, vol. i.; Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. v. pp. 121–132, and the beginning of the sixth book. Also various parts of Bede; Pinkerton's Enquiry into the Early History of Scotland; Chalmers' Caledonia; the first volume of Browne's History of the Highlands; and, above all, Mr. Skene's acute and learned work on the Highlanders. In the last-named book, the western boundary of the Picts is traced with great ingenuity, though perhaps with some uncertainty. Skene's Highlanders of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 26–33, London, 1837.

[7] Here, again, we are involved in doubt; it being uncertain when the name Scotia was first applied to Scotland. The date, therefore, which I have given, is only intended as an approximative truth. In arriving at it, I have compared the following different, and often conflicting, passages: Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. i. p. 339. Browne's History of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 34. Pinkerton's Enquiry into the Early History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 253, 254, vol. ii. pp. 151, 228, 237, 240. Spottiswoode's History of the Church of Scotland, edit. Russell, 1851, vol. i. p. 16, note, where, however, Pinkerton's authority is appealed to for an assertion which he did not make. Skene's Highlanders, vol. i. pp. 45, 61, 244. Anderson's Prize Essay on the Highlands, p. 34.

[8] Pinkerton's Enquiry into the Early History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 136, 317, vol. ii. pp. 179, 298. Skene's Highlanders, vol. i. pp. 90, 91, 94, 106, 114, 258, 259. Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. i. pp. 340–347.

[9] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 38–54. The account in Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. i. pp. 399–403, ascribes too much to the prowess of the Scotch, and too little to the elements which dispersed the fleet. Compare Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, second edition, 4to, 1860, pp. 48, 49.

[10] Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. ii. pp. 116, 117.

[11] In Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 18, ‘the early part of the reign’ of Alexander III. is indicated as the period in which ‘the first approaches were made towards the great plan for the reduction of Scotland, by the English.’ Alexander III. came to the throne in 1249. Earlier, the feeling was very different. Thus, late in the twelfth century, ‘the two nations, according to Fordun, seemed one people; Englishmen travelling at pleasure through all the corners of Scotland (?); and Scotchmen in like manner through England.’ Ridpath's Border History, p. 76. Compare Dalrymple's Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 158. At that time, England, being weak, was peaceably disposed.

[12] An old Scotch writer says, with some exaggeration, ‘The year 1296, at which tyme, the bloodyest and longest warr that ever was betwixt two nationes fell out, and continued two hundreth and sextie years, to the undoeing and ruineing of many noble families, with the slaughter of a million of men.’ Somerville's Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. i. p. 61.

[13] See some just and biting remarks in Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 85.

[14] ‘Anno gratiæ MCCXCVI. tertio kalendas Aprilis, villa et castro de Berevvico, per magnificum regem Angliæ Eadvvardum captis, omnes ibidem inuentos Angli gladio occiderunt, paucis exceptis, qui ipsam villam postmodum abiurarūt.’ Flores Historiarum per Matthæum Westmonasteriensem collecti, Lond. 1570, folio, lib. ii. p. 403. ‘Atque modo prædicto villâ captâ, civibus prostratis, rex Angliæ prædictus nulli ætati parcens aut sexui, duobus diebus rivulis de cruore occisorum fluentibus, septem millia et quingentas animas promiscui sexûs jusserat, in sua tyrannide desæviens, trucidari.’ Fordun's Scotichronicon, curâ Goodall, Edinb. 1775, folio, vol. ii. pp. 159, 160. ‘Secutus Rex cum peditum copiis miserabilem omnis generis cædem edit.’ Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, Abredoniæ, 1762, lib. viii. p. 200. ‘They left not one creature alive of the Scotish blood within all that toune.’ Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, Arbroath, 1805, 4to, vol. i. p. 418. In 1286, that is, only ten years earlier, ‘No other part of Scotland, in point of commercial importance, came near to a comparison with Berwick.’ Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, London, 4to, 1805, vol. i. p. 446. Such were the brutal crimes of our wretched and ignorant ancestors.

[15] ‘The Scots assembled in troops and companies, and betaking themselves to the woods, mountains, and morasses, in which their fathers had defended themselves against the Romans, prepared for a general insurrection against the English power.’ Scott's History of Scotland, London, 1830, vol. i. p. 70. Elgin appears to have been the most northern point of this expedition. See Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 119, and Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. i. p. 657. The general results are summed up by Buchanan: ‘Hanc stragem ex agrorum incultu consecuta est fames, et famem pestis, unde major quàm è bello clades timebatur.’ Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. viii. p. 203.

[16] ‘The army then advanced into Scotland by moderate marches, wasting and destroying every thing on their way.’ … ‘A party of Edward's army, sent northwards, wasted the country, and burnt Perth and Saint Andrews.’ Ridpath's Border History, pp. 146, 147.

[17] ‘The king entered Scotland by the eastern march with a great army.’ … ‘There was this year so terrible a dearth and scarcity of provisions in Scotland, arising from the havoc of war, that many were obliged to feed on the flesh of horses and other carrion.’ Ibid. pp. 164, 165. See also Fordun's Scotichronicon, vol. ii. pp. 242, 243. ‘Quo anno, propter guerrarum discrimina, tanta erat panis inopia et victualium caristia in Scotia, quòd in plerisque locis, compellente famis necessitate, multi carnibus equorum et aliorum pecorum immundorum vescebantur.’

[18] Bruce ‘carefully laid the whole borders waste as far as the Firth of Forth, removing the inhabitants to the mountains, with all their effects of any value. When the English army entered, they found a land of desolation, which famine seemed to guard.’ Scott's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 145. See also Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. viii. p. 218.

[19] ‘Eadwardus, rex Angliæ, intravit Scotiam cum magno exercitu equitum et peditum, ac navium multitudine copiosa, duodecimo die mensis Augusti, et usque villam de Edinburgh pervenit.’ … ‘Spoliatis tamen tunc in reditu Anglorum et prædatis monasteriis Sanctæ Crucis de Edinburgh et de Melros, atque ad magnam desolationem perductis. In ipso namque monasterio de Melros dominus Willelmus de Peblis, ejusdem monasterii Prior, unus etiam monachus tunc infirmus, et duo conversi cæci effecti, in dormitorio eorundem ab eisdem Anglis sunt interfecti, et plures monachi lethaliter vulnerati. Corpus Dominicum super magnum altare fuit projectum, ablatâ pixide argenteâ in quâ erat repositum. Monasterium de Driburgh igne penitùs consumptum est et in pulverem redactum. Ac alia pia loca quamplurima per prædicti regis violentiam ignis flamma consumpsit: quod, Deo retribuente, eisdem in prosperum non cessit.’ Fordun's Scotichronicon, vol. ii. p. 278. ‘In redeundo sacra juxta ac prophana spoliata. Monasteria Driburgum et Mulrossia etiam cæsis monachis infirmioribus, qui vel defectu virium, vel senectutis fiducia soli remanserant, incensa,’ Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. viii. p. 219.

[20] Fordun's Scotichronicon, vol. ii. pp. 322, 323. Dalrymple's Annals, vol. ii. pp. 232, 447. Scott's History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 187, 188.

[21] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 451.

[22] Dalrymple's Annals, vol. ii. p. 288. Fordun's Scotichronicon, vol. ii. pp. 352–354.

[23] ‘Rex Angliæ, Richardus secundus ægrè ferens Scotos et Francos tam atrociter terram suam deprædare, et municipia sua assilire et ad terram prosternere, exercitum collegit grandem, et intravit Scotiam, ætate tunc novemdecim annorum, in multitudine superba progrediens, omnia circumquaque perdens, et nihil salvans; templa Dei et sanctuaria religiosorum monasteria viz. Driburgh, Melros et Newbottel, ac nobilem villam de Edinburgh, cum ecclesia Sancti Ægidii ejusdem, voraci flammâ incineravit; et, destructione permaximâ factâ per eum in Laudonia, ad propria sine damno repatriavit’ Fordun's Scotichronicon, vol. ii. p. 401. ‘En ce séjour que le roi Richard fit en Haindebourch les Anglois coururent tout le pays d'environ et y firent moult de desrois; mais nullui n'y trouvèrent; car tout avoient retrait ens ès forts, et ens ès grands bois, et là chassé tout leur bétail.’ … ‘Et ardirent les Anglois la ville de Saint-Jean-Ston en Ecosse, où la rivière du Tay cuert, et y a un bon port pour aller partout le monde; et puis la ville de Dondie; et n'épargnoient abbayes ni moûtiers; tout mettoient les Anglois en feu et en flambe; et coururent jusques à Abredane les coureurs et l'avant-garde.’ Les Chroniques de Froissart, edit. Buchon, vol. ii. pp. 334, 335, Paris, 1835. See also, on this ruffianly expedition, Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. pp. 592, 593, and Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. ix. p. 253: ‘Nulli loco, neque sacro, neque profano, nulli homini, qui modò militari esset ætate, parcebat.’

[24] ‘Agriculture was ruined; and the very necessaries of life were lost, when the principal lords had scarcely a bed to lye on.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 142. See also, in p. 867 of the same volume of this learned work, some curious extracts from Scotch charters and other sources, illustrating the horrible condition of the country. And on the difficulty of obtaining food, compare Fordun's Scotichronicon, vol. ii. pp. 242, 324; Dalrymple's Annals, vol. i. p. 307, vol. ii. pp. 238, 330; and Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 94.

[25] Notices of Scotch cannibals will be found in Lindsay of Pitscottie's Chronicles of Scotland, edit. 1814, vol. i. p. 163; and in Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, 4to, 1805, vol. ii. pp. 16, 99. In Fordun's Scotichronicon, vol. ii. p. 331, the following horrible account is given: it refers to the neighbourhood of Perth in the year 1339: ‘Tota illa patria circumvicina eo tempore in tantum fuit vastata, quòd non remansit quasi domus inhabitata, sed feræ et cervi de montanis descendentes circa villam sæpiùs venabantur. Tanta tunc temporis facta est caristia, et victualium inopia, ut passim plebicula deficeret, et tanquam oves herbas depascentes, in foveis mortua reperirentur. Prope illinc in abditis latitabat quidam robustus rusticus, Crysticleik nomine, cum viragine sua, qui mulierculis et pueris ac juvenibus insidiabantur, et, tanquam lupi eos strangulantes, de ipsorum carnibus victitabant.’

[26] Even when the two nations were at peace, the borderers were at war. See Ridpath's Border History, pp. 240, 308, 394; and for other evidence of this chronic anarchy, compare Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 30. Lesley's History of Scotland, pp. 40, 52, 67. Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. pp. 300, 301, 444, 449. State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII., 4to, 1836, vol. iv. pp. 366, 370, 569, 570, vol. v. pp. 17, 18, 161. Historie of James the Sext, pp. 21, 91, 146.

[27] In 1400, Henry IV. made ‘the last invasion which an English monarch ever conducted into Scotland.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 406. It is said, however, that it was not till the reign of Elizabeth than an English sovereign ‘had the policy to disavow any claim of sovereignty over Scotland.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. i. p. 650.

[28] But very slowly. Pinkerton (History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 166, 167) says: ‘The frequent wars between Scotland and England, since the death of Alexander III., had occasioned to the former country the loss of more than a century in the progress of civilization. While in England, only the northern provinces were exposed to the Scotish incursions, Scotland suffered in its most civilized departments. It is apparent that in the reign of Alexander III., the kingdom was more abundant in the useful arts and manufactures, than it was in the time of Robert III.’

[29] Owing to this, their castles were, by position, the strongest in Europe; Germany alone excepted. Respecting their sites, which were such as to make them in many instances almost unassailable, see Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. pp. 122, 406, 407, 918, 919, vol. iii. pp. 268, 269, 356–359, 864; Pennant's Scotland, vol. i. pp. 175, 177; Sinclair's Scotland, vol. iii. p. 169, vol. vii. p. 510, vol xi. pp. 102, 212, 407, 408, vol. xii. pp. 25, 58, vol. xiii. p. 598, vol. xv. p. 187, vol. xvi. p. 554, vol. xviii. p. 579, vol. xix. p. 474, vol. xx. pp. 56, 312; Macky's Scotland, pp. 183, 297; and some good remarks in Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire, p. 56. Neither England, nor France, nor Italy, nor Spain, afforded such immense natural advantages to their aristocracy.

[30] ‘By retiring to his own castle, a mutinous baron could defy the power of his sovereign, it being almost impracticable to lead an army through a barren country, to places of difficult access to a single man.’ History of Scotland, book i. p. 59, in Robertson's Works, edit. London, 1831. Notwithstanding the immense materials which have been brought to light since the time of Robertson, his History of Scotland is still valuable; because he possessed a grasp of mind which enabled him to embrace general views, that escape ordinary compilers, however industrious they may be.

[31] ‘The patrimony of the Crown had been seriously dilapidated during the period of confusion which succeeded the battle of Durham,’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 86.

[32] ‘During the long captivity of David,’ the nobles had been completely insubordinate, and ‘affected the style and title of princes,’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 85. See also, on the state of the barons under David II., Skene's Highlanders, vol. ii. pp. 63–67.

[33] In 1299, ‘a superior baron was in every respect a king in miniature.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 150. In 1377, ‘the power of the barons had been decidedly increasing since the days of Robert the First,’ p. 332. And, by 1398, it had risen still higher, p. 392.

[34] On this burning of Scotch towns, which appears to have been the invariable practice of our humane forefathers, see Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. pp. 592, 593; Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. pp. 18, 27, 375, vol. ii. p. 304; Mercer's History of Dunfermline, pp. 55, 66; Sinclair's Scotland, vol. v. p. 485, vol. x. p. 584, vol. xix. p. 161; Ridpath's Border History, pp. 147, 221, 265.

[35] A curious description of them is given in a Scotch statute, of the year 1597. ‘They hawe lykwayis throche thair barbarus inhumunitie maid and presentlie makis the saidis hielandis and Iles qlk are maist cōmodious in thame selwes alsueill be the ferteillitie of the ground as be riche fischeingis altogidder vnproffitabill baithe to thame selffis and to all vthuris his hienes liegis within this realme; Thay nathair intertening onie ciuill or honest societie amangis thame selffis neyther, zit admittit vtheris his hienesse lieges to trafficque within thair boundis vithe saiftie of thair liues and gudes; for remeid quhairof and that the saidis inhabitantis of the saidis hilandeis and Iles may the better be reduced to ane godlie, honest, and ciuill maner of living, it is statute and ordanit,’ &c. Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 138, edit. folio, 1816.

These little peculiarities of the Highlanders remained in full force until about the middle of the eighteenth century, as will appear in the course of this history. But without anticipating what will be narrated in a subsequent chapter, I will merely refer the reader to two interesting passages in Pennant's Scotland, vol. i. p. 154, and in Heron's Scotland, vol. i. pp. 218, 219; both of which illustrate the state of things a little before 1745.

[36] Inverness was burned in 1429. Gregory's History of the Western Highlands, p. 36; and again in 1455, Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xi. p. 322. ‘The greatest part’ of it was also burned in 1411. See Anderson on the Highlands, Edinb. 1827, p. 82.

Aberdeen, being richer, was more tempting, but was likewise more able to defend itself. Still, its burgh records supply curious evidence of the constant fear in which the citizens lived, and of the precautions which they took to ward off the attacks, sometimes of the English, and sometimes of the clans. See the Council Register of Aberdeen (published by the Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1844–1848, 4to), vol. i. pp. 8, 19, 60, 83, 197, 219, 232, 268, vol. ii. p. 82. The last entry, which is dated July 31, 1593, mentions ‘the disordourit and lawles helandmen in Birss, Glentanner, and their about, nocht onlie in the onmerciful murthering of men and bairnis, bot in the maisterfull and violent robbing and spulzeing of all the bestiall, guidis, and geir of a gryt pairt of the inhabitantis of theas boundis, rasing of gryt hairschip furth of the samen, being committit to ewous and nar this burgh, within xx mylis theirunto, deuysit and ordanit for preservation of this burgh and inhabitantis theirof, fra the tyrannous invasion of the saidis hieland men, quha has na respect to God nor man; that the haill inhabitantis of this burgh, fensiball persones als weill onfrie as frie, salbe in reddiness weill armit for the defence of this burgh, thair awin lyvis, gudis, and geir, and resisting and repressing of the said heland men, as occasioun salbe offered, at all tymes and houris as thay salbe requirt and chargit.’

Even in 1668 we find complaints that Highlanders had forcibly carried off women from Aberdeen or from its neighbourhood. Records of the Synod of Aberdeen, p. 290. Other evidence of their attacks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, may be seen in Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 133; Spalding's History of the Troubles, vol. i. pp. 25, 217; Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, pp. 62, 73.

[37] Even Perth ceased to be the capital of Scotland, because ‘its vicinity to the Highlands’ made it dangerous for the sovereign to reside there. Lawson's Book of Perth, p. xxxi.

[38] On the prevalence of barter and lack of specie, in Scotland, see the Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. iv. pp. lvii.–lx., Aberdeen, 1849, 4to. In 1492, the treasury of Aberdeen was obliged to borrow 4l. 16s. Scots. Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 61. Compare Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. x. p. 542. Fynes Moryson, who was in Scotland late in the sixteenth century, says, ‘the gentlemen reckon their revenues not by rents of money, but by chauldrons of victuals.’ Moryson's Itinerary, part iii. p. 155, London, folio, 1617; a rare and extremely curious book, which ought to be reprinted. A hundred years after Moryson wrote, it was observed that, ‘in England, the rents are paid in money; in Scotland, they are, generally speaking, paid in kind, or victual, as they call it.’ De Foe's History of the Union, p. 130.

[39] In the reign of James I. (1424–1436), ‘It appears that armour, nay spears, and bows and arrows, were chiefly imported.’ … ‘In particular, the heads of arrows and of spears seem to have been entirely imported from Flanders,’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 163. We learn from Rymer's Fœdera, that, in 1368, two Scotchmen having occasion to fight a duel, got their armour from London. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 575.

[40] From the Bibel of English Policy, supposed to have been written in the reign of Edward IV., we learn that ‘the Scotish imports from Flanders were mercery, but more haberdashery, cart-wheels, and wheel-barrows,’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 408. In Mercer's History of Dunfermline, p. 61, we are told that, in the fifteenth century, ‘Even in the best parts of Scotland, the inhabitants could not manufacture the most necessary articles. Flanders was the great mart in those times, and from Bruges chiefly, the Scots imported even horse-shoes, harness, saddles, bridles, cart-wheels, and wheel-barrows, besides all their mercery and haberdashery.’

[41] Aberdeen was, for a long period, one of the most wealthy, and, in some respects, the most advanced, of all the Scotch cities. But it appears, from the council-registers of Aberdeen, that, ‘in the beginning of the sixteenth century, there was not a mechanic in the town capable to execute the ordinary repairs of a clock,’ Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 99. On the Scotch clocks in the middle of the sixteenth century, compare Mr. Morley's interesting Life of Cardan, London, 1854, vol. ii. p. 128. Cardan was in Scotland in 1552.

[42] About 1619, Sir George Hay ‘set up at the village of Wemyss, in Fife, a small glass-work, being the first known to have existed amongst us.’ Chambers' Annals, vol. i. p. 506. See also p. 428.

[43] ‘Before this time, soap was imported into Scotland from foreign countries, chiefly from Flanders.’ Ibid., vol. i. p. 507, under the year 1619, where mention is made of the manufactory set up at Leith. ‘The sope-workes of Leith’ are noticed in 1650, in Balfour's Annales, vol. iv. p. 68.

[44] Ray, who visited Scotland in 1661, says, ‘In the best Scottish houses, even the king's palaces, the windows are not glazed throughout, but the upper part only; the lower have two wooden shuts or folds to open at pleasure and admit the fresh air.’ … ‘The ordinary country-houses are pitiful cots, built of stone, and covered with turves, having in them but one room, many of them no chimneys, the windows very small holes and not glazed.’ Ray's Itineraries, p. 153, edited by Dr. Lankester, London, 1846. ‘About 1752, the glass window was beginning to make its appearance in the small farm-houses.’ Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. ii. p. 265, Edinburgh, 1797.

[45] In 1650, it was stated of the Scotch, that ‘many of their women are so sluttish, that they do not wash their linen above once a month, nor their hands and faces above once a year.’ Whitelock's Memorials, p. 468, London, 1732, folio. Six or seven years after this, a traveller in Scotland says, ‘the linen they supplied us with, were it not to boast of, was little or nothing different from those female complexions that never washed their faces to retain their christendom.’ Franck's Northern Memoirs, edit. Edinburgh, 1821, p. 94. A celebrated Scotchman notices, in 1698, the uncleanly habits of his countrymen, but gives a comical reason for them; since, according to him, they were in a great measure caused by the position of the capital. ‘As the happy situation of London has been the principal cause of the glory and riches of England, so the bad situation of Edinburgh has been one great occasion of the poverty and uncleanliness in which the greater part of the people of Scotland live.’ Second Discourse on the Affairs of Scotland, in Fletcher of Saltoun's Political Works, p. 119, Glasgow, 1749. Another Scotchman, among his reminiscences of the early part of the eighteenth century, says, that ‘table and body linen [were] seldom shifted.’ Memoires by Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, in Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 100, Aberdeen, 1842, 4to. Finally, we have positive proof that in some parts of Scotland, even at the end of the eighteenth century, the people used, instead of soap, a substitute too disgusting to mention. See the account communicated by the Rev. William Leslie to Sir John Sinclair, in Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ix. p. 177, Edinburgh, 1793.

[46] Chambers' Annals, vol. i. p. 512.

[47] A paper-mill was established near Edinburgh in 1675; but ‘there is reason to conclude this paper-mill was not continued, and that paper-making was not successfully introduced into Scotland till the middle of the succeeding century.’ Chambers' Annals, vol. ii. p. 399. I have met with so many proofs of the great accuracy of this valuable work, that I should be loath to question any statement made by Mr. Chambers, when, as in this case, I have only my memory to trust to. But I think that I have seen evidence of paper being successfully manufactured in Scotland late in the seventeenth century, though I cannot recall the passages. However, Arnot, in his History of Edinburgh, p. 599, edit. 4to, says, ‘About forty years ago, printing or writing paper began to be manufactured in Scotland. Before that, papers were imported from Holland, or brought from England,’ As Arnot's work was printed in 1788, this coincides with Mr. Chambers' statement. I may add, that, at the end of the eighteenth century, there were ‘two paper-mills near Perth.’ Heron's Journey through Scotland, vol. i. p. 117, Perth, 1799; and that, in 1751 and 1763, the two first paper-mills were erected north of the Forth. Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ix. p. 593, vol. xvi. p. 373. Compare Lettice's Letters from Scotland in 1792, p. 420.

[48] ‘This city was founded about the sixth century.’ M'Ure's History of Glasgow, edit. 1830, p. 120. Compare Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 2, Glasgow, 1804.

[49] In 1172, a market was granted to Glasgow; and in 1190, a fair. See the charters in the Appendix to Gibson's History of Glasgow, pp. 299, 302, Glasgow, 1777.

[50] ‘By the sale of land made by Robert de Mythyngby to Mr. Reginald de Irewyne, a.d. 1268, it is evident that the town was then governed by provosts, aldermen, or wardens, and baillies, who seem to have been independent of the bishop, and were possessed of a common seal, distinct from the one made use of by the bishop and chapter.’ Gibson's History of Glasgow, p. 72.

[51] ‘A Mr. William Elphinston is made mention of as the first promoter of trade in Glasgow, so early as the year 1420; the trade which he promoted was, in all probability, the curing and exporting of salmon.’ Gibson's History of Glasgow, p. 203. See also M'Ure's History of Glasgow, p. 93.

[52] Gibson (History of Glasgow, p. 74), with every desire to take a sanguine view of the early state of his own city, says, that, in 1450, the inhabitants ‘might perhaps amount to fifteen hundred;’ and that ‘their wealth consisted in a few burrow-roods very ill-cultivated, and in some small cattle, which fed on their commons.’

[53] ‘Dunfermline continued to be a favourite royal residence as long as the Scottish dynasty existed. Charles I. was born here; as also his sister Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia, from whom her present Majesty is descended; and Charles II. paid a visit to this ancient seat of royalty in 1650. The Scottish parliament was often held in it.’ M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary, London, 1849, vol. i. p. 723. Compare Mercer's History of Dunfermline, 1828, pp. 56, 58, and Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, 1844, p. 264.

[54] In 1385, it was ‘only a sorry wooden village, belonging to the monastery.’ Mercer's History of Dunfermline, p. 62.

[55] See ‘Ms. Annals,’ in Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, p. 327. In 1624, we learn from Balfour's Annales, edit. 1825, vol. ii. p. 99, that ‘the quholl bodey of the towne, which did consist of 120 tenements, and 287 families was brunt and consumed.’

[56] ‘Greenock, which is now one of the largest shipping towns in Scotland, was, in the end of the sixteenth century, a mean fishing village, consisting of a single row of thatched cottages, which was inhabited by poor fishermen.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 806, 4to, 1824.

[57] In May 1668, Kilmarnock was burnt; and ‘the event is chiefly worthy of notice as marking the smallness of Kilmarnock in those days, when as yet, there was no such thing as manufacturing industry in the country. A hundred and twenty families speaks to a population of between five and six hundred.‘ Chambers' Annals, Edinburgh, 1858, vol. ii. p. 320. In 1658, their houses are described by an eye-witness as ‘little better than huts.‘ Franck's Northern Memoirs, reprinted Edinburgh, 1821, p. 101.

[58] ‘Betwixt two and three thousand souls,‘ Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 542, edit. Glasgow, 1804.

[59] In 1572, the registers of Aberdeen show that seventy-two deaths occurred in the year. An annual mortality of 1 in 40 would be a very favourable estimate; indeed, rather too favourable, considering the habits of the people at that time. However, supposing it to be 1 in 40, the population would be 2880; and if, as I make no doubt, the mortality was more than 1 in 40, the population must of course have been less. Kennedy, in his valuable, but very uncritical, work, conjectures that ‘one fiftieth part of the inhabitants had died annually;’ though it is certain that there was no town in Europe any thing like so healthy as that. On this hypothesis, which is contradicted by every sort of statistical evidence that has come down to us, the number would be 72 × 50 = 3600. See Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 103, London, 1818, 4to.

[60] ‘St. Andrews, Perth, and Aberdeen, appear to have been the three most populous cities before the Reformation.’ Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, 1836, p. 26. The same assertion is made in Lyon's History of St. Andrews, 1843, vol. i. p. 2. But neither of these writers appear to have made many researches on the subject, or else they would not have supposed that Aberdeen was larger than Edinburgh.

[61] I have carefully read the two histories of St. Andrews, by Dr. Grierson and by Mr. Lyon, but have found nothing in them of any value concerning the early history of that city. Mr. Lyon's work, which is in two thick volumes, is unusually superficial, even for a local history; and that is saying much.

[62] ‘Of the thirteen parliaments held in the reign of King James I., eleven were held at Perth, one at Stirling, and one at Edinburgh. The National Councils of the Scottish clergy were held there uniformly till 1459. Though losing its pre-eminence by the selection of Edinburgh as a capital, Perth has uniformly and constantly maintained the second place in the order of burghs, and its right to do so has been repeatedly and solemnly acknowledged.’ Penny's Traditions of Perth, Perth, 1836, p. 231. See also p. 305. It appears, however, from Froissart, that Edinburgh was deemed the capital in the latter half of the fourteenth century.

[63] I find one instance of its being praised by a man who was not a Scotchman. Alexander Necham ‘takes notice of Perth in the following distich, quoted in Camden's Britannia:

Transis ample Tai, per rura, per oppida, per Perth:
Regnum sustentant illius urbis opes.
Thus Englished in Bishop Gibson's Translations of Camden's Book:
Great Tay, through Perth, through towns, through country flies:
Perth the whole kingdom with her wealth supplies.’

Sinclair's Scotland, vol. xviii. p. 511.

[64] 1427 × 6 = 8562, the computed population in 1584 and 1585, exclusive of the extraordinary mortality caused by the plague. Chambers' Annals of Scotland, 1858, vol. i. p. 158.

[65] ‘The inhabitants of the capital, in the reign of Robert II., hardly exceeded sixteen thousand.’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 152.

[66] When the French arrived in Edinburgh, the Scotch said, ‘“Quel diable les a mandés? Ne savons-nous pas bien faire notre guerre sans eux aux Anglois? Nous ne ferons jà bonne besogne tant comme ils soient avec nous. On leur dise que ils s'en revoisent, et que nous sommes gens assez en Escosse pour parmaintenir notre guerre, et que point nous ne voulons leur compagnie. Ils ne nous entendent point, ni nous eux; nous ne savons parler ensemble; ils auront tantôt riflé et mangé tout ce qui est en ce pays: ils nous feront plus de contraires, de dépits, et de dommages, si nous les laissons convenir, que les Anglois ne feroient si ils s'étoient embattus entre nous sans ardoir. Et si les Anglois ardent nos maisons, que peut il chaloir? Nous les aurons tantôt refaites à bon marché, nous n'y mettons au refaire que trois jours, mais que nous ayons quatre ou six estaches et de la ramée pour lier par dessus.”’

‘Ainsi disoient les Escots en Escosse à la venue des seigneurs de France,’ … ‘Et quand les Anglois y chevauchent ou que ils y vont, ainsi que ils y ont été plusieurs fois, il convient que leurs pourvéances, si ils veulent vivre, les suivent toujours au dos; car on ne trouve rien sur le pays: à grand'peine y recuevre-l'en du fer pour serrer les chevaux, ni du cuir pour faire harnois, selles ni brides. Les choses toutes faites leur viennent par mer de Flandre, et quand cela leur défaut, ils n'ont nulle chose. Quand ces barons et ces chevaliers de France qui avoient appris ces beaux hôtels à trouver, ces salles parées, ces chasteaux et ces bons mols lits pour reposer, se virent et trouvèrent en celle povreté, si commencèrent à rire et à dire: “En quel pays nous a ci amenés l'amiral? Nous ne sçumes oncques que ce fût de povreté ni de dureté fors maintenant.”’ Les Chroniques de Froissart, edit. Buchon, Paris, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 314, 315. ‘The hovels of the common people were slight erections of turf, or twigs, which, as they were often laid waste by war, were built merely for temporary accommodation. Their towns consisted chiefly of wooden cottages,’ … ‘Even as late as 1600, the houses of Edinburgh were chiefly built of wood.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. i. p. 802. Another account, written in 1670, says, ‘The houses of the commonalty are very mean, mudwall and thatch, the best; but the poorer sort live in such miserable huts as never eye beheld.’ … ‘In some parts, where turf is plentiful, they build up little cabbins thereof, with arched roofs of turf, without a stick of timber in it; when the house is dry enough to burn, it serves them for fuel, and they remove to another.’ Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 139, 4to, 1810.

[67] ‘Our manufactures were carried on by the meanest of the people, who had small stocks, and were of no reputation. These were, for the most part, workmen for home-consumpt, such as masons, house-carpenters, armourers, blacksmiths, taylors, shoemakers, and the like. Our weavers were few in number, and in the greatest contempt, as their employments were more sedentary, and themselves reckoned less fit for war, in which all were obliged to serve, when the exigencies of the country demanded their attendance.’ The Interest of Scotland Considered, Edinburgh, 1733, p. 82. Pinkerton (History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 392), referring to the Sloane manuscripts, says, ‘The author of an interesting memoir concerning the state of Scotland about 1590, observes, that the husbandmen were a kind of slaves, only holding their lands from year to year; that the nobility being too numerous for the extent of the country, there arose too great an inequality of rank and revenue; and there was no middle station between a proud landholder and those who, having no property to lose, were ready for any tumult. A rich yeomanry, numerous merchants and tradesmen of property, and all the denominations of the middle class, so important in a flourishing society, were long to be confined to England.’ Thirteen years later, we are told that the manufactures of Scotland ‘were confined to a few of the coarsest nature, without which the poorest nations are unable to subsist.’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 7, under the year 1603.

[68] Thus, for instance, ‘the town of Dunbar naturally grew up under the shelter of the castle of the same name.’ … ‘Dunbar became the town, in demesn, of the successive Earls of Dunbar and March, partaking of their influences, whether unfortunate or happy.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 416. ‘But when the regal government became at any time feeble, these towns, unequal to their own protection, placed themselves under the shelter of the most powerful lord in their neighbourhood. Thus, the town of Elgyn found it necessary, at various periods between the years 1389 and 1452, to accept of many charters of protection, and discharges of taxes, from the Earls of Moray, who held it in some species of vassalage.’ Sinclair's Scotland, vol. v. p. 3. Compare Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 396; and two letters, written in 1543 and 1544, by the magistrates of Aberdeen, to the Earl of Huntly, and printed in the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. i. pp. 190, 201, Aberdeen, 1844, 4to. They say to him, ‘Ye haf our band as protectour to wss.’

[69] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 225. See also p. 131; and Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 179. Sometimes the nobles did not leave to the citizens even the appearance of a free election, but fought it out among themselves. An instance of this happened at Perth, in 1544, ‘where a claim for the office of provost was decided by arms, between Lord Ruthven on the one side, supported by a numerous train of his vassals, and Lord Gray, with Norman Leslie, master of Rothes, and Charteris of Kinfauns, on the other.’ Tytler, vol. iv. p. 323.

[70] For illustrations of this custom, see Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 230. Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. ii. p. 154. Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 249. Mercer's History of Dunfermline, p. 83.

[71] ‘An injury inflicted on the “man” of a nobleman was resented as much as if he himself had been the injured party.’ Preface to the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. xii.

[72] See, in Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. p. 93, 1st edit., a spirited description of Scotland in 1639. ‘The parliament of the northern kingdom was a very different body from that which bore the same name in England.’ … ‘The three estates sat in one house. The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as retainers of the great nobles,’ &c. To come down much later, Lord Cockburn gives a terrible account of the state of things in Scotland in 1794, the year in which Jeffrey was called to the bar. ‘There was then, in this country, no popular representation, no emancipated burghs, no effective rival of the established church, no independent press, no free public meetings, and no better trial by jury, even in political cases (except high treason), than what was consistent with the circumstances, that the jurors were not sent into court under any impartial rule, and that, when in court, those who were to try the case were named by the presiding judge. The Scotch representatives were only forty-five, of whom thirty were elected for counties, and fifteen for towns. Both from its price and its nature (being enveloped in feudal and technical absurdities), the elective franchise in counties, where alone it existed, was far above the reach of the whole lower, and of a great majority of the middle, and of many even of the higher, ranks. There were probably not above 1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be held, hope included, in government's hands. The return, therefore, of a single opposition member was never to be expected.’ … ‘Of the fifteen town members, Edinburgh returned one. The other fourteen were produced by clusters of four or five unconnected burghs electing each one delegate, and these four or five delegates electing the representative. Whatever this system may have been originally, it had grown, in reference to the people, into as complete a mockery as if it had been invented for their degradation. The people had nothing to do with it. It was all managed by town-councils, of never more than thirty-three members; and every town-council was self-elected, and consequently perpetuated its own interests. The election of either the town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper; for the farce was generally performed in an apartment from which, if convenient, the public could be excluded, and never in the open air.’ Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey, Edinburgh, 1852, vol. i. pp. 74–76. On the state of Scotch representation between this and the Reform Bill, compare Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, 4to, 1860, pp. 275, 276, with Moore's Memoirs, edited by Lord John Russell, vol. iv. p. 268, vol. vi. p. 163, London, 1853–4.

[73] History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 125–129, 373–380.

[74] History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 171.

[75] We must discriminate between wonder and admiration. Wonder is the product of ignorance; admiration is the product of knowledge. Ignorance wonders at the supposed irregularities of nature; science admires its uniformities. The earlier writers rarely attended to this distinction, because they were misled by the etymology of the word ‘admiration.’ The Romans were very superficial thinkers upon all matters except jurisprudence; and their blundering use of ‘admirari’ gave rise to the error, so common among our old writers, of ‘I admire,’ instead of ‘I wonder.’

[76] ‘Our Scottish witch is a far more frightful being than her supernatural coadjutor on the south side of the Tweed. She sometimes seems to rise from the proper sphere of the witch, who is only the slave, into that of the sorcerer, who is master of the demon.’ … ‘In a people so far behind their neighbours in domestic organization, poor and hardy, inhabiting a country of mountains, torrents, and rocks, where cultivation was scanty, accustomed to gloomy mists and wild storms, every impression must necessarily assume a corresponding character. Superstitions, like funguses and vermin, are existences peculiar to the spot where they appear, and are governed by its physical accidents.’ … ‘And thus it is that the indications of witchcraft in Scotland are as different from those of the superstition which in England receives the same name, as the Grampian Mountains from Shooter's Hill or Kennington Common.’ Burton's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. pp. 240–243. This is admirably expressed, and exhausts the general view of the subject. The relation between the superstition of the Scotch and the physical aspects of their country is also touched upon, though with much inferior ability, in Brown's History of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 106, and in Sinclair's Scotland, vol. iv. p. 560. Hume, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 556, has an interesting passage on the high pretensions of Scotch witchcraft, which never degenerated, as in other countries, into a mere attempt at deception, but always remained a sturdy and deep-rooted belief. He says, ‘For among the many trials for witchcraft which fill the record, I have not observed that there is even one which proceeds upon the notion of a vain or cheating art, falsely used by an impostor to deceive the weak and credulous.’ Further information respecting Scotch witchcraft will be found in Mackenzie's Criminal Laws of Scotland, Edinburgh, folio, 1699, pp. 42–56; Correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, London, 1844, vol. iii. pp. 186, 187; Southey's Life of Bell, London, 1844, vol. i. p. 52; Vernon Correspondence, edited by James, London, 1841, vol. ii. p. 301; Weld's History of the Royal Society, London, 1848, vol. i. p. 89; Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, edit. 1815, vol. i. pp. 220, 221; The Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 41, Edinburgh, 1845; Lyon's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. ii. pp. 56, 57. The work of James I., and that of Sir Walter Scott, need hardly be referred to, as they are well known to every one who is interested in the history of witchcraft; but Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, though less read, are, in every respect, more valuable, on account of the materials they contain for a study of this department of Scotch superstition.

[77] Pinkerton (History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 414) says that, in the reigns of James II. and James III., ‘the wealth of the Church was at least equivalent to that of all the lay interest.’ See also Life of Spottiswoode, p. liii., in vol. i. of his History of the Church of Scotland. ‘The numerous devices employed by ecclesiastics, both secular and regular, for enriching the several Foundations to which they were attached, had transferred into their hands more than half of the territorial property of Scotland, or of its annual produce.’

In regard to the first half of the sixteenth century, it is stated by a high authority, that, just before the Reformation, ‘the full half of the wealth of the nation belonged to the clergy.’ M'Crie's Life of Knox, p. 10. And another writer says, ‘If we take into account the annual value of all these abbeys and monasteries, in conjunction with the bishoprics, it will appear at once that the Scottish Catholic hierarchy was more munificently endowed, considering the extent and resources of the kingdom, than it was in any other country in Europe.’ Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 22. See also, respecting the incomes of the Scotch bishops, which, considering the poverty of the country, were truly enormous, Lyon's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. i. pp. 97, 125.

[78] ‘They could employ all the motives of fear and of hope, of terror and of consolation, which operate most powerfully on the human mind. They haunted the weak and the credulous; they besieged the beds of the sick and of the dying; they suffered few to go out of the world without leaving marks of their liberality to the Church, and taught them to compound with the Almighty for their sins, by bestowing riches upon those who called themselves his servants.’ History of Scotland, book ii. p. 89, in Robertson's Works, London, 1831. It is interesting to observe the eagerness with which the clergy of one persuasion expose the artifices of those of another. By comparing their different statements, laymen gain an insight into the entire scheme.

[79] Pinkerton observes, under the year 1514, that ‘ecclesiastical dignities presented almost the only path to opulence.’ History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 123.

[80] Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 376–380.

[81] Arnot (History of Edinburgh, p. 386) says, that the University of St. Andrews was founded in 1412; and the same thing is stated in Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. ii. p. 83. Grierson, in his History of St. Andrews, Cupar, 1838, p. 14, says, ‘In 1410, the city of St. Andrews first saw the establishment of its famous university, the most ancient institution of the kind that exists in Scotland;’ but, at p. 144 of the same work, we are told, that the charter, ‘constituting and declaring it to be a university,’ is ‘dated at St. Andrews, the 27th of February, 1411.’ See also Lyon's History of St. Andrews, vol. i. pp. 203–206, vol. ii. p. 223. At all events, ‘at the commencement of the fifteenth century, no university existed in Scotland; and the youth who were desirous of a liberal education were under the necessity of seeking it abroad.’ M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. i. p. 211. The charter granted by the Pope, confirming the university, reached Scotland in 1413. Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 12.

[82] Those were times, when, as a Scotch lawyer delicately expresses himself, ‘thieving was not the peculiar habit of the low and indigent, but often common to them with persons of rank and landed estate.’ Hume's Commentaries on the Law of Scotland, 4to, 1797, vol. i. p. 126. The usual form of robbery being cattle-stealing, a particular name was invented for it; see p. 148, where we learn that it ‘was distinguished by the name of Hership or Herdship, being the driving away of numbers of cattle, or other bestial, by the masterful force of armed people.’

[83] Tytler, who was a great patriot, and disposed to exaggerate the merit of everything which was Scotch, does nevertheless allow that, “from the accession of Alexander III. to the death of David II. (i.e. in 1370), it would be impossible, I believe, to produce a single instance of a Scottish baron who could sign his own name.” Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 239, 240. Early in the sixteenth century, I find it casually mentioned, that ‘David Straiton, a cadet of the house of Laureston,’ … ‘could not read.’ Wodrow's Collections, vol. i. pp. 5, 6. The famous chief, Walter Scott of Harden, was married in 1567; and ‘his marriage contract is signed by a notary, because none of the parties could write their names.’ Chambers' Annals, vol. i. p. 46. Crawfurd (History of Renfrew, part iii. p. 313) says: ‘The modern practice of subscribing names to writes of moment was not used in Scotland till about the year 1540;’ but he forgets to tell us why it was not used. In 1564, Robert Scot of Thirlstane, ‘ancestor of Lord Napier,’ could not sign his name. See Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. iii. p. 394.

[84] A Scotchman, of considerable learning, says: ‘Scotland was no less ignorant and superstitious at the beginning of the fifteenth century, than it was towards the close of the twelfth.’ Dalrymple's Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 428.

[85] ‘Et sont ainsi comme gens sauvages qui ne se savent avoir ni de nulli accointer.’ Les Chroniques de Froissart, edit. Buchon, Paris, 1835, vol. ii. p. 315.

[86] ‘Plus pleine de sauvagine que de bestail.’ Hist. de Charles VI, par Le Laboureur, quoted in Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 149.

[87] Occasionally, we find evidence of it earlier, but it was hardly systematic. Compare Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 66, with Dalrymple's Annals, vol. i. pp. 72, 110, 111, 194, vol. iii. p. 296; Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire, p. 88; Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, pp. 133, 134.

CHAPTER II.

CONDITION OF SCOTLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.

Early in the fifteenth century, the alliance between the Crown and the Church, and the determination of that alliance to overthrow the nobles, became manifest. Indications of this may be traced in the policy of Albany, who was Regent from 1406 to 1419, and who made it his principal object to encourage and strengthen the clergy.[88] He also dealt the first great blow upon which any government had ventured against the aristocracy. Donald, who was one of the most powerful of the Scottish chieftains, and who, indeed, by the possession of the Western Isles, was almost an independent prince, had seized the earldom of Ross, which, if he could have retained, would have enabled him to set the Crown at defiance. Albany, backed by the Church, marched into his territories, in 1411, forced him to renounce the earldom, to make personal submission, and to give hostages for his future conduct.[89] So vigorous a proceeding on the part of the executive, was extremely unusual in Scotland;[90] and it was the first of a series of aggressions, which ended in the Crown obtaining for itself, not only Ross, but also the Western Isles.[91] The policy inaugurated by Albany, was followed up with still greater energy by James I. In 1424, this bold and active prince procured an enactment, obliging many of the nobles to show their charters, in order that it might be ascertained what lands they held, which had formerly belonged to the Crown.[92] And, to conciliate the affections of the clergy, he, in 1425, issued a commission, authorizing the Bishop of Saint Andrews to restore to the Church whatever had been alienated from it; while he at the same time directed that the justiciaries should assist in enforcing execution of the decree.[93] This occurred in June; and what shows that it was part of a general scheme is, that in the preceding spring, the king suddenly arrested, in the parliament assembled at Perth, upwards of twenty of the principal nobles, put four of them to death, and confiscated several of their estates.[94] Two years afterwards, he, with equal perfidy, summoned the Highland chiefs to meet him at Inverness, laid hands on them also, executed three, and imprisoned more than forty, in different parts of the kingdom.[95]

By these measures, and by supporting the Church with the same zeal that he attacked the nobles, the king thought to reverse the order of affairs hitherto established, and to secure the supremacy of the throne over the aristocracy.[96] But herein, he overrated his own power. Like nearly all politicians, he exaggerated the value of political remedies. The legislator and the magistrate may, for a moment, palliate an evil; they can never work a cure. General mischiefs depend upon general causes, and these are beyond their art. The symptoms of the disease they can touch, while the disease itself baffles their efforts, and is too often exasperated by their treatment. In Scotland, the power of the nobles was a cruel malady, which preyed on the vitals of the nation; but it had long been preparing; it was a chronic disorder; and, having worked into the general habit, it might be removed by time, it could never be diminished by violence. On the contrary, in this, as in all matters, whenever politicians attempt great good, they invariably inflict great harm. Over-action on one side produces reaction on the other, and the balance of the fabric is disturbed. By the shock of conflicting interests, the scheme of life is made insecure. New animosities are kindled, old ones are embittered, and the natural jar and discordance are aggravated, simply because the rulers of mankind cannot be brought to understand, that, in dealing with a great country, they have to do with an organization so subtle, so extremely complex, and withal so obscure, as to make it highly probable, that whatever they alter in it, they will alter wrongly, and that while their efforts to protect or to strengthen its particular parts are extremely hazardous, it does undoubtedly possess within itself a capacity of repairing its injuries, and that to bring such capacity into play, there is merely required that time and freedom which the interference of powerful men too often prevents it from enjoying.

Thus it was in Scotland, in the fifteenth century. The attempts of James I. failed, because they were particular measures directed against general evils. Ideas and associations, generated by a long course of events, and deeply seated in the public mind, had given to the aristocracy immense power; and if every noble in Scotland had been put to death, if all their castles had been razed to the ground, and all their estates confiscated, the time would unquestionably have come, when their successors would have been more influential than ever, because the affection of their retainers and dependents would be increased by the injustice that had been perpetrated. For, every passion excites its opposite. Cruelty to-day, produces sympathy to-morrow. A hatred of injustice contributes more than any other principle to correct the inequalities of life, and to maintain the balance of affairs. It is this loathing at tyranny, which, by stirring to their inmost depth the warmest feelings of the heart, makes it impossible that tyranny should ever finally succeed. This, in sooth, is the noble side of our nature. This is that part of us, which, stamped with a godlike beauty, reveals its divine origin, and, providing for the most distant contingencies, is our surest guarantee that violence shall never ultimately triumph; that, sooner or later, despotism shall always be overthrown; and that the great and permanent interests of the human race shall never be injured by the wicked counsels of unjust men.

In the case of James I., the reaction came sooner than might have been expected; and, as it happened in his lifetime, it was a retribution, as well as a reaction. For some years, he continued to oppress the nobles with impunity;[97] but, in 1436, they turned upon him, and put him to death, in revenge for the treatment to which he had subjected many of them.[98] Their power now rose as suddenly as it had fallen. In the south of Scotland, the Douglases were supreme,[99] and the earl of that family possessed revenues about equal to those of the Crown.[100] And, to show that his authority was equal to his wealth, he, on the marriage of James II., in 1449, appeared at the nuptials with a train composed of five thousand followers.[101] These were his own retainers, armed and resolute men, bound to obey any command he might issue to them. Not, indeed, that compulsion was needed on the part of a Scotch noble to secure the obedience of his own people. The servitude was a willing one, and was essential to the national manners. Then, and long afterwards, it was discreditable, as well as unsafe, not to belong to a great clan; and those who were so unfortunate as to be unconnected with any leading family, were accustomed to take the name of some chief, and to secure his protection by devoting themselves to his service.[102]

What the Earl of Douglas was in the south of Scotland, that were the Earls of Crawford and of Ross in the north.[103] Singly they were formidable; united they seemed irresistible. When, therefore, in the middle of the fifteenth century, they actually leagued together, and formed a strict compact against all their common enemies, it was hard to say what limit could be set to their power, or what resource remained to the government, except that of sowing disunion among them.[104]

But, in the mean time, the disposition of the nobles to use force against the Crown, had been increased by fresh violence. Government, instead of being warned by the fate of James I., imitated his unscrupulous acts, and pursued the very policy which had caused his destruction. Because the Douglases were the most powerful of all the great families, it was determined that their chiefs should be put to death; and because they could not be slain by force, they were to be murdered by treachery. In 1440, the Earl of Douglas, a boy of fifteen, and his brother, who was still younger than he, were invited to Edinburgh on a friendly visit to the king. Scarcely had they arrived, when they were seized by order of the chancellor, subjected to a mock trial, declared guilty, dragged to the castle-yard, and the heads of the poor children cut off.[105]

Considering the warm feelings of attachment which the Scotch entertained for their chiefs, it is difficult to overrate the consequences of this barbarous murder, in strengthening a class it was hoped to intimidate. But this horrible crime was committed by the government only, and it occurred during the king's minority: the next assassination was the work of the king himself. In 1452, the Earl of Douglas[106] was, with great show of civility, requested by James II. to repair to the court then assembled at Stirling. The Earl hesitated, but James overcame his reluctance by sending to him a safeconduct with the royal signature, and issued under the great seal.[107] The honour of the king being pledged, the fears of Douglas were removed. He hastened to Stirling, where he was received with every distinction. The evening of his arrival, the king, after supper was over, broke out into reproaches against him, and, suddenly drawing his dagger, stabbed him. Gray then struck him with a battle-axe, and he fell dead on the floor, in presence of his sovereign, who had lured him to court, that he might murder him with impunity.[108]

The ferocity of the Scotch character, which was the natural result of the ignorance and poverty of the nation, was, no doubt, one cause, and a very important one, of the commission of such crimes as these, not secretly, but in the open light of day, and by the highest men in the State. It cannot, however, be denied, that another cause was, the influence of the clergy, whose interest it was to humble the nobles, and who were by no means scrupulous as to the means that they employed.[109] As the Crown became more alienated from the aristocracy, it united itself still closer with the Church. In 1443, a statute was enacted, the object of which was, to secure ecclesiastical property from the attacks made upon it by the nobles.[110] And although, in that state of society, it was easier to pass laws than to execute them, such a measure indicated the general policy of the government, and the union between it and the Church. Indeed, as to this, no one could be mistaken.[111] For nearly twenty years, the avowed and confidential adviser of the Crown was Kennedy, bishop of Saint Andrews, who retained power until his death, in 1466, during the minority of James III.[112] He was the bitter enemy of the nobles, against whom he displayed an unrelenting spirit, which was sharpened by personal injuries; for the Earl of Crawford had plundered his lands, and the Earl of Douglas had attempted to seize him, and had threatened to put him into irons.[113] The mildest spirit might well have been roused by this; and as James II., when he assassinated Douglas, was more influenced by Kennedy than by any one else, it is probable that the bishop was privy to that foul transaction. At all events, he expressed no disapprobation of it; and when, in consequence of the murder, the Douglases and their friends rose in open rebellion, Kennedy gave to the king a crafty and insidious counsel, highly characteristic of the cunning of his profession. Taking up a bundle of arrows, he showed James, that when they were together, they were not to be broken; but that, if separated, they were easily destroyed. Hence he inferred, that the aristocracy should be overthrown by disuniting the nobles, and ruining them one by one.[114]

In this he was right, so far as the interests of his own order were concerned; but, looking at the interest of the nation, it is evident that the power of the nobles, notwithstanding their gross abuse of it, was, on the whole, beneficial, since it was the only barrier against despotism. The evil they actually engendered, was indeed immense. But they kept off other evils, which would have been worse. By causing present anarchy, they secured future liberty. For, as there was no middle class, there were only three orders in the commonwealth; namely, government, clergy, and nobles. The two first being united against the last, it is certain that if they had won the day, Scotland would have been oppressed by the worst of all yokes, to which a country can be subjected. It would have been ruled by an absolute king and an absolute Church, who, playing into each other's hands, would have tyrannized over a people, who, though coarse and ignorant, still loved a certain rude and barbarous liberty, which it was good for them to possess, but which, in the face of such a combination, they would most assuredly have forfeited.

Happily, however, the power of the nobles was too deeply rooted in the popular mind to allow of this catastrophe. In vain did James III. exert himself to discourage them,[115] and to elevate their rivals, the clergy.[116] Nothing could shake their authority; and, in 1482, they, seeing the determination of the king, assembled together, and such was their influence over their followers, that they had no difficulty in seizing his person, and imprisoning him in the Castle of Edinburgh.[117] After his liberation, fresh quarrels arose;[118] and in 1488, the principal nobles collected troops, met him in the field, defeated him, and put him to death.[119] He was succeeded by James IV., under whom the course of affairs was exactly the same; that is to say, on one side the nobles, and on the other side the Crown and the Church. Every thing that the king could do to uphold the clergy, he did cheerfully. In 1493, he obtained an act to secure the immunities of the sees of Saint Andrews and of Glasgow, the two most important in Scotland.[120] In 1503, he procured a general revocation of all grants and gifts prejudicial to the Church, whether they had been made by the Parliament or by the Council.[121] And, in 1508, he, by the advice of Elphinston, bishop of Aberdeen, ventured on a measure of still greater boldness. That able and ambitious prelate induced James to revive against the nobility several obsolete claims, by virtue of which the king could, under certain circumstances, take possession of their estates, and could, in every instance in which the owner held of the Crown, receive nearly the whole of the proceeds during the minority of the proprietor.[122]

To make such claims was easy; to enforce them was impossible. Indeed, the nobles were at this time rather gaining ground than losing it; and, after the death of James IV., in 1513, they, during the minority of James V., became so powerful, that the regent, Albany, twice threw up the government in despair, and at length abandoned it altogether.[123] He finally quitted Scotland in 1524, and with him the authority of the executive seemed to have vanished. The Douglases soon obtained possession of the person of the king, and compelled Beaton, archbishop of Saint Andrews, the most influential man in the Church, to resign the office of chancellor.[124] The whole command now fell into their hands; they or their adherents filled every office; secular interests predominated, and the clergy were thrown completely into the shade.[125] In 1528, however, an event occurred by which the spiritual classes not only recovered their former position, but gained a preëminence, which, as it turned out, was eventually fatal to themselves. Archbishop Beaton, impatient at proceedings so unfavourable to the Church, organized a conspiracy, by means of which James effected his escape from the Douglases, and took refuge in the castle of Stirling.[126] This sudden reaction was not the real and controlling cause, but it was undoubtedly the proximate cause, of the establishment of Protestantism in Scotland. For, the reins of government now passed into the hands of the Church; and the most influential of the nobles were consequently persecuted, and some of them driven from the country. But, though their political power was gone, their social power remained. They were stripped of their honours and their wealth. They became outcasts, traitors, and beggars. Still, the real foundation of their authority was unshaken, because that authority was the result of a long train of circumstances, and was based on the affections of the people. Therefore it was, that the nobles, even those who were exiled and attainted, were able to conduct an arduous, but eventually a successful, struggle against their enemies. The desire of revenge whetted their exertions, and gave rise to a deadly contest between the Scotch aristocracy and the Scotch Church. This most remarkable conflict was, in some degree, a continuation of that which began early in the fifteenth century. But it was far more bitter; it lasted, without interruption, for thirty-two years; and it was only concluded by the triumph of the nobles, who, in 1560, completely overthrew the Church, and destroyed, almost at a blow, the whole of the Scotch hierarchy.

The events of this struggle, and the vicissitudes to which, during its continuance, both parties were exposed, are related, though somewhat confusedly, in our common histories: it will be sufficient if I indicate the salient points, and, avoiding needless detail, endeavour to throw light on the general movement. The unity of the entire scheme will thus be brought before our minds, and we shall see, that the destruction of the Catholic Church was its natural consummation, and that the last act of that gorgeous drama, so far from being a strained and irregular sequence, was in fit keeping with the whole train of the preceding plot.

When James effected his escape in 1528, he was a boy of sixteen, and his policy, so far as he can be said to have had any mind of his own, was of course determined by the clergy, to whom he owed his liberty, and who were his natural protectors. His principal adviser was the Archbishop of Saint Andrews; and the important post of chancellor, which, under the Douglases, had been held by a layman, was now conferred on the Archbishop of Glasgow.[127] These two prelates were supreme; while, at the same time, the Abbot of Holyrood was made treasurer, and the Bishop of Dunkeld was made privy seal.[128] All nobles, and even all followers, of the house of Douglas, were forbidden to approach within twelve miles of the court, under pain of treason.[129] An expedition was fitted out, and sent against the Earl of Caithness, who was defeated and slain.[130] Just before this occurred, the Earl of Angus was driven out of Scotland, and his estates confiscated.[131] An act of attainder was passed against the Douglases.[132] The government, moreover, seized, and threw into prison, the Earl of Bothwell, Home, Maxwell, and two Kerrs, and the barons of Buccleuch, Johnston, and Polwarth.[133]

All this was vigorous enough, and was the consequence of the Church recovering her power. Other measures, equally decisive, were preparing. In 1531, the king deprived the Earl of Crawford of most of his estates, and threw the Earl of Argyle into prison.[134] Even those nobles who had been inclined to follow him, he now discouraged. He took every opportunity of treating them with coldness, while he filled the highest offices with their rivals, the clergy.[135] Finally, he, in 1532, aimed a deadly blow at their order, by depriving them of a large part of the jurisdiction which they were wont to exercise in their own country, and to the possession of which they owed much of their power. At the instigation of the Archbishop of Glasgow, he established what was called the College of Justice, in which suits were to be decided, instead of being tried, as heretofore, by the barons, at home, in their castles. It was ordered that this new tribunal should consist of fifteen judges, eight of whom must be ecclesiastics; and to make the intention still more clear, it was provided that the president should invariably be a clergyman.[136]

This gave the finishing touch to the whole, and it, taken in connexion with previous measures, exasperated the nobles almost to madness. Their hatred of the clergy became uncontrollable; and, in their eagerness for revenge, they not only threw themselves into the arms of England, and maintained a secret understanding with Henry VIII., but many of them went even further, and showed a decided leaning towards the principles of the Reformation. As the enmity between the aristocracy and the Church grew more bitter, just in the same proportion did the desire to reform the Church become more marked. The love of innovation was encouraged by interested motives, until, in the course of a few years, an immense majority of the nobles adopted extreme Protestant opinions; hardly caring what heresy they embraced, so long as they were able, by its aid, to damage a Church from which they had recently received the greatest injuries, and with which they and their progenitors had been engaged in a contest of nearly a hundred and fifty years.[137]

In the mean time, James V. united himself closer than ever with the hierarchy. In 1534, he gratified the Church, by personally assisting at the trial of some heretics, who were brought before the bishops and burned.[138] The next year, he was offered, and he willingly accepted, the title of Defender of the Faith, which was transferred to him from Henry VIII.; that king being supposed to have forfeited it by his impiety.[139] At all events, James well deserved it. He was a stanch supporter of the Church, and his privy-council was chiefly composed of ecclesiastics, as he deemed it dangerous to admit laymen to too large a share in the government.[140] And, in 1538, he still further signalized his policy, by taking for his second wife Mary of Guise; thus establishing an intimate relation with the most powerful Catholic family in Europe, whose ambition, too, was equal to their power, and who made it their avowed object to uphold the Catholic faith, and to protect it from those rude and unmannerly invasions which were now directed against it in most parts of Europe.[141]

This was hailed by the Church as a guarantee for the intentions of the king. And so indeed it proved to be. David Beaton, who negotiated the marriage, became the chief adviser of James during the rest of his reign. He was made Archbishop of Saint Andrews in 1539,[142] and, by his influence, a persecution hotter than any yet known, was directed against the Protestants. Many of them escaped into England,[143] where they swelled the number of the exiles, who were waiting till the time was ripe to take a deadly revenge. They, and their adherents at home, coalesced with the disaffected nobles, particularly with the Douglases,[144] who were by far the most powerful of the Scotch aristocracy, and who were connected with most of the great families, either by old associations, or by the still closer bond of the interest which they all had in reducing the power of the Church.[145]

At this juncture, the eyes of men were turned towards the Douglases, whom Henry VIII. harboured at his court, and who were now maturing their plans.[146] Though they did not yet dare to return to Scotland, their spies and agents reported to them all that was done, and preserved their connexions at home. Feudal covenants, bonds of manrent, and other arrangements, which, even if illegal, it would have been held disgraceful to renounce, were in full force; and enabled the Douglases to rely with confidence on many of the most powerful nobles, who were, moreover, disgusted at the predominance of the clergy, and who welcomed the prospect of any change which was likely to lessen the authority of the Church.[147]

With such a combination of parties, in a country where, there being no middle class, the people counted for nothing, but followed wherever they were led, it is evident that the success or failure of the Reformation in Scotland was simply a question of the success or failure of the nobles. They were bent on revenge. The only doubt was, as to their being strong enough to gratify it. Against them, they had the Crown and the Church. On their side they had the feudal traditions, the spirit of clanship, the devoted obedience of their innumerable retainers, and, what was equally important, that love of names, and of family associations, for which Scotland is still remarkable, but which, in the sixteenth century, possessed an influence difficult to exaggerate.

The moment for action was now at hand. In 1540, the government, completely under the control of the clergy, caused fresh laws to be enacted against the Protestants, whose interests were by this time identical with those of the nobles. By these statutes, no one, even suspected of heresy, could for the future hold any office; and all Catholics were forbidden to harbour, or to show favour to, persons who professed the new opinions.[148] The clergy, now flushed with conquest, and greedy for the destruction of their ancient rivals, proceeded to still farther extremities. So unrelenting was their malice, that, in that same year, they presented to James a list containing the names of upwards of three hundred members of the Scotch aristocracy, whom they formally accused as heretics, who ought to be put to death, and whose estates they recommended the king to confiscate.[149]

These hot and vindictive men little knew of the storm which they were evoking, and which was about to burst on their heads, and cover them and their Church with confusion. Not that we have reason to believe that a wiser conduct would have ultimately saved the Scotch hierarchy. On the contrary, the probability is, that their fate was sealed; for the general causes which governed the entire movement had been so long at work, that, at this period, it would have been hardly possible to have baffled them. But, even if we admit as certain, that the Scotch clergy were doomed, it is also certain that their violence made their fall more grievous, by exasperating the passions of their adversaries. The train, indeed, was laid; their enemies had supplied the materials, and all was ready to explode; but it was themselves who at last applied the match, and sprung the mine to their own destruction.

In 1542, the nobles, seeing that the Church and the Crown were bent on their ruin, took the most decisive step on which they had yet ventured, and peremptorily refused to obey James in making war upon the English. They knew that the war in which they were desired to participate had been fomented by the clergy, with the twofold object of stopping all communication with the exiles, and of checking the introduction of heretical opinions.[150] Both these intentions they resolved to frustrate, and, being assembled on the field, they declared with one voice that they would not invade England. Threats and persuasions were equally useless. James, stung with vexation, returned home, and ordered the army to be disbanded. Scarcely had he retired, when the clergy attempted to rally the troops, and to induce them to act against the enemy. A few of the peers, ashamed at what seemed a cowardly desertion of the king, appeared willing to march. The rest, however, refused; and, while they were in this state of doubt and confusion, the English, taking them unawares, suddenly fell upon their disorderly ranks, utterly routed them, and made a large number prisoners. In this disgraceful action, ten thousand Scotch troops fled before three hundred English cavalry.[151] The news being brought to James, while he was still smarting from the disobedience of the nobles, was too much for his proud and sensitive mind. He reeled under the double shock; a slow fever wasted his strength; he sunk into a long stupor; and, refusing all comfort, he died in December 1542, leaving the Crown to his infant daughter, Mary, during whose reign the great contest between the aristocracy and the Church was to be finally decided.[152]

The influence of the nobles was increased by the death of James V., and yet more by the bad repute into which the clergy fell for having instigated a war, of which the result was so disgraceful.[153] Their party was still further strengthened by the exiles, who, as soon as they heard the glad tidings, prepared to leave England.[154] Early in 1543, Angus and Douglas returned to Scotland,[155] and were soon followed by other nobles, most of whom professed to be Protestants, though, as the result clearly proved, their Protestantism was inspired by a love of plunder and of revenge. The late king had, in his will, appointed Cardinal Beaton to be guardian of the queen, and governor of the realm.[156] Beaton, though an unprincipled man, was very able, and was respected as the head of the national church; he being Archbishop of St. Andrews, and primate of Scotland. The nobles, however, at once arrested him,[157] deprived him of his regency, and put in his place the Earl of Arran, who, at this time, affected to be a zealous Protestant, though, on a fitting occasion, he afterwards changed his opinions.[158] Among the supporters of the new creed, the most powerful were the Earl of Angus and the Douglases. They were now freed from a prescription of fifteen years; their attainder was reversed, and their estates and honours were restored to them.[159] It was evident that not only the executive authority, but also the legislative, had passed from the Church to the aristocracy. And they, who had the power, were not sparing in the use of it. Lord Maxwell, one of the most active of their party, had, like most of them, in their zeal against the hierarchy, embraced the principles of the Reformation.[160] In the spring of 1543, he obtained the sanction of the Earl of Arran, the governor of Scotland, for a proposal which he made to the Lords of the Articles, whose business it was to digest the measures to be brought before Parliament. The proposal was, that the people should be allowed to read the Bible in a Scotch or English translation. The clergy arrayed all their force against what they rightly deemed a step full of danger to themselves, as conceding a fundamental principle of Protestantism. But all was in vain. The tide had set in, and was not to be turned. The proposition was adopted by the Lords of the Articles. On their authority, it was introduced into Parliament. It was passed. It received the assent of the government; and, amid the lamentations of the Church, it was proclaimed, with every formality, at the market-cross of Edinburgh.[161]

Scarcely had the nobles thus attained the upper hand, when they began to quarrel among themselves. They were resolved to plunder the Church; but they could not agree as to how the spoil should be shared. Neither could they determine as to the best mode of proceeding; some being in favour of an open and immediate schism, while others wished to advance cautiously, and to temporize with their opponents, that they might weaken the hierarchy by degrees. The more active and zealous section of the nobles were known as the English party,[162] owing to their intimate connexion with Henry VIII., from whom many of them received supplies of money. But, in 1544, war broke out between the two countries, and the clergy, headed by Archbishop Beaton, roused, with such success, the old feelings of national hatred against the English, that the nobles were compelled for a moment to bend before the storm, and to advocate an alliance with France. Indeed, it seemed for a few months as if the Church and aristocracy had forgotten their old and inveterate hostility, and were about to unite their strength in one common cause.[163]

This, however, was but a passing delusion. The antagonism between the two classes was irreconcilable.[164] In the spring of 1545, the leading Protestant nobles formed a conspiracy to assassinate Archbishop Beaton,[165] whom they hated more than any one else, partly because he was the head of the Church, and partly because he was the ablest and most unscrupulous of their opponents. A year, however, elapsed before their purpose could be effected; and it was not till May 1546, that Lesley, a young baron, accompanied by the Laird of Grange, and a few others, burst into Saint Andrews, and murdered the primate in his own castle.[166]

The horror with which the Church heard of this foul and barbarous deed,[167] maybe easily imagined. But the conspirators, nothing daunted, and relying on the support of a powerful party, justified their act, seized the castle of Saint Andrews, and prepared to defend it to the last. And in this resolution they were upheld by a most remarkable man, who now first appeared to public view, and who, being admirably suited to the age in which he lived, was destined to become the most conspicuous character of those troublous times.

That man was John Knox. To say that he was fearless and incorruptible, that he advocated with unflinching zeal what he believed to be the truth, and that he devoted himself with untiring energy to what he deemed the highest of all objects, is only to render common justice to the many noble attributes which he undoubtedly possessed. But, on the other hand, he was stern, unrelenting, and frequently brutal; he was not only callous to human suffering, but he could turn it into a jest, and employ on it the resources of his coarse, though exuberant, humour;[168] and he loved power so inordinately, that, unable to brook the slightest opposition, he trampled on all who crossed his path, or stood even for a moment in the way of his ulterior designs.

The influence of Knox in promoting the Reformation, has indeed been grossly exaggerated by historians, who are too apt to ascribe vast results to individual exertions; overlooking those large and general causes, in the absence of which the individual exertion would be fruitless. Still, he effected more than any single man;[169] although the really important period of his life, in regard to Scotland, was in and after 1559, when the triumph of Protestantism was already secure, and when he reaped the benefit of what had been effected during his long absence from his own country. His first effort was a complete failure, and, more than any one of his actions, has injured his reputation. This was the sanction which he gave to the cruel murder of Archbishop Beaton, in 1546. He repaired to the Castle of Saint Andrews; he shut himself up with the assassins; he prepared to share their fate; and, in a work which he afterwards wrote, openly justified what they had done.[170] For this, nothing can excuse him; and it is with a certain sense of satisfied justice that we learn, that, in 1547, the castle being taken by the French, Knox was treated with great severity, and was made to work at the galleys, from which he was not liberated till 1549.[171]

During the next five years, Knox remained in England, which he quitted in 1554, and arrived at Dieppe.[172] He then travelled abroad; and did not revisit Scotland till the autumn of 1555, when he was eagerly welcomed by the principal nobles and their adherents.[173] From some cause, however, which has not been sufficiently explained, but probably from an unwillingness to play a subordinate part among those proud chiefs, he, in July 1556, again left Scotland, and repaired to Geneva, where he had been invited to take charge of a congregation.[174] He stayed abroad till 1559, by which time the real struggle was almost over; so completely had the nobles succeeded in sapping the foundations of the Church.

For, the course of events having been long prepared, was now rapid indeed. In 1554, the queen dowager had succeeded Arran as regent.[175] She was that Mary of Guise whose marriage with James V. we have noticed as one of the indications of the policy then prevailing. If left alone, she would probably have done little harm;[176] but her powerful and intolerant family exhorted her to suppress the heretics, and, as a natural part of the same scheme, to put down the nobles. By the advice of her brothers, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, she, in 1555, proposed to establish a standing army, to supply the place of the troops, which consisted of the feudal barons and their retainers. Such a force, being paid by the Crown, would have been entirely under its control; but the nobles saw the ulterior design, and compelled Mary to abandon it, on the ground that they and their vassals were able to defend Scotland, without further aid.[177] Her next attempt was to consolidate the interests of the Catholic party, which she effected, in 1558, by marrying her daughter to the dauphin. This increased the influence of the Guises,[178] whose niece, already queen of Scotland, would now, in the ordinary course of affairs, become queen of France. They urged their sister to extreme measures, and promised to assist her with French troops. On the other hand, the nobles remained firm, and prepared for the struggle. In December 1557, several of them had drawn up a covenant, agreeing to stand by each other, and to resist the tyranny with which they were threatened.[179] They now took the name of Lords of the Congregation, and sent forth their agents to secure the subscriptions of those who wished for a reformation of the Church.[180] They, moreover, wrote to Knox, whose style of preaching, being very popular, would, they thought, be useful in stirring up the people to rebellion.[181] He was then in Geneva, and did not arrive in Scotland till May 1559,[182] by which time the result of the impending contest was hardly doubtful, so successful had the nobles been in strengthening their party, and so much reason had they to expect the support of Elizabeth.

Nine days after Knox entered Scotland, the first blow was struck. On the 11th of May 1559, he preached in Perth. After the sermon, a tumult arose, and the people plundered the churches and pulled down the monasteries.[183] The queen-regent, hastily assembling troops, marched towards the town. But the nobles were on the alert. The Earl of Glencairn joined the congregation with two thousand five hundred men; and a treaty was concluded, by which both sides agreed to disarm, on condition that no one should be punished for what had already happened.[184] Such, however, was the state of the public mind, that peace was impossible. In a few days, war again broke out; and this time the result was more decisive. The Lords of the Congregation mustered in great force. Perth, Stirling, and Linlithgow, fell into their hands. The queen-regent retreated before them. She evacuated Edinburgh; and, on the 29th of June, the Protestants entered the capital in triumph.[185]

All this was done in seven weeks from the breaking out of the first riot. Both parties were now willing to negotiate, with the view of gaining time; the queen-regent expecting aid from France, the Lords expecting it from England.[186] But the proceedings of Elizabeth being tardy, the Protestants, after waiting for some months, determined to strike a decisive blow before the reinforcements arrived. In October, the principal peers, headed by the Duke of Chastelherault, the Earl of Arran, the Earl of Argyle, and the Earl of Glencairn, assembled at Edinburgh. A great meeting was held, of which Lord Ruthven was appointed president, and in which the queen-regent was solemnly suspended from the government, on the ground that she was opposed to ‘the glory of God, to the liberty of the realm, and to the welfare of the nobles.’[187]

In the winter, an English fleet sailed into the Frith, and anchored near Edinburgh.[188] In January 1560, the Duke of Norfolk arrived at Berwick, and concluded, on the part of Elizabeth, a treaty with the Lords of the Congregation, by virtue of which the English army entered Scotland on the 2nd of April.[189] Against this combination, the government could effect nothing, and in July, was glad to sign a peace, by which the French troops were to evacuate Scotland, and the whole power of administration was virtually consigned to the Protestant Lords.[190]

The complete success of this great revolution, and the speed with which it was effected, are of themselves a decisive proof of the energy of those general causes by which the whole movement was controlled. For more than a hundred and fifty years, there had been a deadly struggle between the nobles and the Church: and the issue of that struggle, was the establishment of the Reformation, and the triumph of the aristocracy. They had, at last, carried their point. The hierarchy was overthrown, and replaced by new and untried men. All the old notions of apostolic succession, of the imposition of hands, and of the divine right of ordination, were suddenly discarded. The offices of the Church were performed by heretics, the majority of whom had not even been ordained.[191] Finally, and to crown the whole, in the summer of the same year, 1560, the Scotch parliament passed two laws, which utterly subverted the ancient scheme. By one of these laws, every statute which had ever been enacted in favour of the Church, was at once repealed.[192] By the other law, it was declared that whoever either said mass, or was present while it was said, should, for the first offence, lose his goods; for the second offence be exiled; and, for the third offence, be put to death.[193]

Thus it was, that an institution, which had borne the brunt of more than a thousand years, was shivered, and fell to pieces. And, from its fall, great things were augured. It was believed, that the people would be enlightened, that their eyes were opening to their former follies, and that the reign of superstition was about to end. But what was forgotten then, and what is too often forgotten now, is, that in these affairs there is an order and a natural sequence, which can never be reversed. This is, that every institution, as it actually exists, no matter what its name or pretences may be, is the effect of public opinion far more than the cause; and that it will avail nothing to attack the institution, unless you can first change the opinion. In Scotland, the Church was grossly superstitious; but it did not, therefore, follow, that to overthrow the establishment, would lessen the evil. They who think that superstition can be weakened in this way, do not know the vitality of that dark and ill-omened principle. Against it, there is only one weapon, and that weapon is knowledge. When men are ignorant, they must be superstitious; and wherever superstition exists, it is sure to organize itself into some kind of system, which it makes its home. If you drive it from that home, it will find another. The spirit transmigrates; it assumes a new form; but still it lives. How idle, then, is that warfare which reformers are too apt to wage, in which they slay the carcass, and spare the life! The husk, forsooth, they seek out and destroy; but within that husk is a seed of deadly poison, whose vitality they are unable to impair, and which, shifted from its place, bears fruit in another direction, and shoots up with a fresh, and often a more fatal, exuberance.

The truth is, that every institution, whether political or religious, represents, in its actual working, the form and pressure of the age. It may be very old; it may bear a venerated name; it may aim at the highest objects: but whoever carefully studies its history, will find that, in practice, it is successively modified by successive generations, and that, instead of controlling society, it is controlled by it. When the Protestant Reformation was effected, the Scotch were excessively ignorant, and, therefore, in spite of the Reformation, they remained excessively superstitious. How long that ignorance continued, and what its results were, we shall presently see; but before entering into that inquiry, it will be advisable to trace the immediate consequences of the Reformation itself, in connexion with the powerful class by whose authority it was established.

The nobles, having overthrown the Church, and stripped it of a large part of its wealth, thought that they were to reap the benefit of their own labour. They had slain the enemy, and they wished to divide the spoil.[194] But this did not suit the views of the Protestant preachers. In their opinion, it was impious to secularize ecclesiastical property, and turn it aside to profane purposes. They held, that it was right, indeed, for the lords to plunder the Church; but they took for granted that the proceeds of the robbery were to enrich themselves. They were the godly men; and it was the business of the ruling classes to endow them with benefices, from which the old and idolatrous clergy were to be expelled.[195]

In accordance with these opinions, Knox and his colleagues, in August 1560, presented a petition to Parliament, calling on the nobles to restore the Church property which they had seized, and to have it properly applied to the support of the new ministers.[196] To this request, those powerful chiefs did not even vouchsafe a reply.[197] They were content with matters as they actually stood, and were, therefore, unwilling to disturb the existing arrangement. They had fought the fight; they had gained the victory, and shared the spoil. It was not to be supposed that they would peaceably relinquish what they had won with infinite difficulty. Nor was it likely that, after being engaged in an arduous struggle with the Church for a hundred and fifty years, and having at length conquered their inveterate enemy, they should forego the fruits of their triumph for the sake of a few preachers, whom they had but recently called to their aid; low-born and obscure men, who should rather deem it an honour that they were permitted to associate with their superiors in a common enterprise, but were not to presume on that circumstance, nor to suppose that they, who only entered the field at the eleventh hour, were to share the booty on anything approaching to terms of equality.[198]

But the aristocracy of Scotland little knew the men with whom they had to deal. Still less, did they understand the character of their own age. They did not see that, in the state of society in which they lived, superstition was inevitable, and that, therefore, the spiritual classes, though depressed for a moment, were sure speedily to rise again. The nobles had overturned the Church; but the principles on which Church authority is based, remained intact. All that was done, was to change the name and the form. A new hierarchy was quickly organized, which succeeded the old one in the affections of the people. Indeed, it did more. For, the Protestant clergy, neglected by the nobles, and unendowed by the state, had only a miserable pittance whereupon to live, and they necessarily threw themselves into the arms of the people, where alone they could find support and sympathy.[199] Hence, a closer and more intimate union than would otherwise have been possible. Hence, too, as we shall presently see, the Presbyterian clergy, smarting under the injustice with which they were treated, displayed that hatred of the upper classes, and that peculiar detestation of monarchical government, which they showed whenever they dared. In their pulpits, in their presbyteries, and in their General Assemblies, they encouraged a democratic and insubordinate tone, which eventually produced the happiest results, by keeping alive, at a critical moment, the spirit of liberty; but which, for that very reason, made the higher ranks rue the day, when, by their ill-timed and selfish parsimony, they roused the wrath of so powerful and implacable a class.

The withdrawal of the French troops, in 1560, had left the nobles in possession of the government;[200] and it was for them to decide to what extent the Reformed clergy should be endowed. The first petition, presented by Knox and his brethren, was passed over in contemptuous silence. But the ministers were not so easily put aside. Their next step was, to present to the Privy Council what is known as the First Book of Discipline, in which they again urged their request.[201] To the tenets contained in this book, the council had no objection; but they refused to ratify it, because, by doing so, they would have sanctioned the principle that the new church had a right to the revenues of the old one.[202] A certain share, indeed, they were willing to concede. What the share should be, was a matter of serious dispute, and caused the greatest ill-will between the two parties. At length, the nobles broke silence, and, in December 1561, they declared that the Reformed clergy should only receive one-sixth of the property of the Church; the remaining five-sixths being divided between the government and the Catholic priesthood.[203] The meaning of this was easily understood, since the Catholics were now entirely dependent on the government, and the government was, in fact, the nobles themselves, who were, at that period, the monopolizers of political power.

Such being the case, it naturally happened, that, when the arrangement was made known, the preachers were greatly moved. They saw how unfavourable it was to their own interests, and, therefore, they held that it was unfavourable to the interests of religion. Hence, in their opinion, it was contrived by the devil, whose purposes it was calculated to serve.[204] For, now, they who travailed in the vineyard of the Lord, were to be discouraged, and were to suffer, in order that what rightly belonged to them might be devoured by idle bellies.[205] The nobles might benefit for a time, but the vengeance of God was swift, and would most assuredly overtake them.[206] From the beginning to the end, it was nothing but spoliation. In a really Christian land, the patrimony of the Church would be left untouched.[207] But, in Scotland, alas! Satan had prevailed,[208] and Christian charity had waxen cold.[209] In Scotland, property, which should be regarded as sacred, had been broken up and divided; and the division was of the worst kind, since, by it, said Knox, two-thirds are given to the devil, and the other third is shared between God and the devil. It was as if Joseph, when governor of Egypt, had refused food to his brethren, and sent them back to their families with empty sacks.[210] Or, as another preacher suggested, the Church was now, like the Maccabees of old, being oppressed, sometimes by the Assyrians, and sometimes by the Egyptians.[211]

But neither persuasions nor threats[212] produced any effect on the obdurate minds of the Scotch nobles. Indeed, their hearts, instead of being softened, became harder. Even the small stipends, which were allotted to the Protestant clergy, were not regularly paid, but were mostly employed for other purposes.[213] When the ministers complained, they were laughed at, and insulted, by the nobles, who, having gained their own ends, thought that they could dispense with their former allies.[214] The Earl of Morton, whose ability, as well as connexions, made him the most powerful man in Scotland, was especially virulent against them; and two of the preachers, who offended him, he put to death, under circumstances of great cruelty.[215] The nobles, regarding him as their chief, elected him Regent in 1572;[216] and, being now possessed of supreme power, he employed it against the Church. He seized upon all the benefices which became vacant, and retained their profits in his own hands.[217] His hatred of the preachers passed all bounds. He publicly declared, that there would be neither peace nor order in the country, until some of them were hung.[218] He refused to sanction the General Assemblies by his presence; he wished to do away with their privileges, and even with their name; and with such determination did he pursue his measures, that, in the opinion of the historian of the Scotch Kirk, nothing but the special interference of the Deity could have maintained its existing polity.[219]

The rupture between Church and State was now complete. It remained to be seen, which was the stronger side. Every year, the clergy became more democratic; and, after the death of Knox, in 1572, they ventured upon a course which even he would hardly have recommended, and which, during the earlier period of the Reformation, would have been impracticable.[220] But, by this time, they had secured the support of the people; and the treatment they were receiving from the government, and from the nobles, embittered their minds, and drove them into desperate counsels. While their plans were yet immature, and while the future was looming darkly before them, a new man arose, who was well qualified to be their chief, and who at once stepped into the place which the death of Knox left vacant. This was Andrew Melville, who, by his great ability, his boldness of character, and his fertility of resource, was admirably suited to be the leader of the Scottish Church in that arduous struggle in which it was about to embark.[221]

In 1574, Melville, having completed his education abroad, arrived in Scotland.[222] He quickly rallied round him the choicest spirits in the Church; and, under his auspices, a struggle began with the civil power, which continued, with many fluctuations, until it culminated, sixty years later, in open rebellion against Charles I. To narrate all the details of the contest, would be inconsistent with the plan of this Introduction; and, notwithstanding the extreme interest of the events which now ensued, the greater part of them must be omitted; but I will endeavour to indicate the general march, and to put the reader in possession of such facts as are most characteristic of the age in which they occurred.

Melville had not been in Scotland many months, before he began his opposition, at first by secret intrigues, afterwards with open and avowed hostility.[223] In the time of Knox, episcopacy had been recognized as part of the Protestant Church, and had received the sanction of the leading Reformers.[224] But that institution did not harmonize with the democratic spirit which was now growing up. The difference of ranks between the bishops and the inferior clergy was unpleasant, and the ministers determined to put an end to it.[225] In 1575, one of them, named John Dury, was instigated, by Melville, to bring the subject before the General Assembly at Edinburgh.[226] After he had spoken, Melville also expressed himself against episcopacy; but, not being yet sure of the temper of the audience, his first proceedings were somewhat cautious. Such hesitation was, however, hardly necessary; for, owing to the schism between the Church and the upper classes, the ministers were becoming the eager enemies of those maxims of obedience, and of subordination, which they would have upheld, had the higher ranks been on their side. As it was, the clergy were only favoured by the people; they, therefore, sought to organize a system of equality, and were ripe for the bold measures proposed by Melville and his followers. This was clearly shown, by the rapidity of the subsequent movement. In 1575, the first attack was made in the General Assembly at Edinburgh. In April 1578, another General Assembly resolved, that, for the future, bishops should be called by their own names, and not by their titles.[227] The same body also declared, that no see should be filled up, until the next Assembly.[228] Two months afterwards, it was announced that this arrangement was to be perpetual, and that no new bishop should ever be made.[229] And, in 1580, the Assembly of the Church at Dundee, pulling the whole fabric to the ground, unanimously resolved that the office of bishop was a mere human invention; that it was unlawful; that it must be immediately done away with; and that every bishop should at once resign his office, or be excommunicated if he refuse to do so.[230]

The minister and the people had now done their work, and, so far as they were concerned, had done it well.[231] But the same circumstances which made them desire equality, made the upper classes desire inequality.[232] A collision, therefore, was inevitable, and was hastened by this bold proceeding of the Church. Indeed, the preachers, supported by the people, rather courted a contest, than avoided it. They used the most inflammatory language against episcopacy; and, shortly before abolishing it, they completed, and presented to Parliament, the Second Book of Discipline, in which they flatly contradicted what they had asserted in their First Book of Discipline.[233] For this, they are often taunted with inconsistency.[234] But the charge is unjust. They were perfectly consistent; and they merely changed their maxims, that they might preserve their principles. Like every corporation, which has ever existed, whether spiritual or temporal, their supreme and paramount principle was to maintain their own power. Whether or not this is a good principle, is another matter; but all history proves that it is an universal one. And when the leaders of the Scotch Church found that it was at stake, and that the question at issue was, who should possess authority, they, with perfect consistency, abandoned opinions that they had formerly held, because they now perceived that those opinions were unfavourable to their existence as an independent body.

When the First Book of Discipline appeared, in 1560, the government was in the hands of the nobles, who had just fought on the side of the Protestant preachers, and were ready to fight again on their side. When the Second Book of Discipline appeared, in 1578, the government was still held by the nobles; but those ambitious men had now thrown off the mask, and, having effected their purpose in destroying the old hierarchy, had actually turned round, and attacked the new one. The circumstances having changed, the Church changed with them; but in the change there was nothing inconsistent. On the contrary, it would have been the height of inconsistency for the ministers to have retained their former notions of obedience and of subordination; and it was perfectly natural that, at this crisis, they should advocate the democratic idea of equality, just as before they had advanced the aristocratic idea of inequality.

Hence it was, that, in their First Book of Discipline, they established a regularly ascending hierarchy, according to which the general clergy owed obedience to their ecclesiastical superiors, to whom the name of superintendents was given.[235] But, in the Second Book of Discipline, every vestige of this was swept away; and it was laid down in the broadest terms, that all the preachers being fellow-labourers, all were equal in power; that none had authority over others; and that, to claim such authority, or to assert preëminence, was a contrivance of man, not to be permitted in a divinely constituted Church.[236]

The government, as may be supposed, took a very different view. Such doctrines were deemed, by the upper classes, to be anti-social, and to be subversive of all order.[237] So far from sanctioning them, they resolved, if possible, to overthrow them; and, the year after the General Assembly had abolished episcopacy, it was determined that, upon that very point, a trial of strength should be made between the two parties.

In 1581, Robert Montgomery was appointed archbishop of Glasgow. The ministers who composed the chapter of Glasgow refused to elect him; whereupon the Privy Council declared that the King, by virtue of his prerogative, had the right of nomination.[238] All was now confusion and uproar. The General Assembly forbad the archbishop to enter Glasgow.[239] He refused to obey their order, and threw himself upon the support of the Duke of Lennox, who had obtained the appointment for him, and to whom he, in return, had surrendered nearly all the revenues of the see, reserving for himself only a small stipend.[240] This was a custom which had grown up within the last few years, and was one of many contrivances by which the nobles plundered the Church of her property.[241]

This, however, was not the question now at issue.[242] The point to be decided was one, not of revenue, but of power. For the clergy knew full well, that if they established their power, the revenue would quickly follow. They, therefore, adopted the most energetic proceedings. In April 1582, the General Assembly met at St. Andrews, and appointed Melville as Moderator.[243] The government, fearing the worst, ordered the members, on pain of rebellion, to take no steps respecting the archbishopric.[244] But the representatives of the Church were undaunted. They summoned Montgomery before them; they ratified the sentence by which he had been suspended from the ministry; and they declared that he had incurred the penalties of despotism and of excommunication.[245]

A sentence of excommunication was, in those days, so ruinous, that Montgomery was struck with terror at the prospect before him. To avoid the consequences, he appeared before the Assembly, and solemnly promised that he would make no further attempt to possess himself of the archbishopric.[246] By doing this, he probably saved his life; for the people, siding with their clergy, were ripe for mischief, and were determined, at all hazards, to maintain what they considered to be the rights of the Church, in opposition to the encroachments of the State.

The government, on the other hand, was equally resolute.[247] The Privy Council called several of the ministers before them; and Dury, one of the most active, they banished from Edinburgh.[248] Measures still more violent were about to be taken, when they were interrupted by one of those singular events which not unfrequently occurred in Scotland, and which strikingly evince the inherent weakness of the Crown, notwithstanding the inordinate pretensions it commonly assumed.

This was the Raid of Ruthven, which happened in 1582, and in consequence of which the person of James VI. was held in durance for ten months.[249] The clergy, true to the policy which now governed them, loudly approved of the captivity of the king, and pronounced it to be a godly act.[250] Dury, who had been driven from his pulpit, was brought back to the capital in triumph;[251] and the General Assembly, meeting at Edinburgh, ordered that the imprisonment of James should be justified by every minister to his own congregation.[252]

In 1583, the king recovered his liberty, and the struggle became more deadly than ever; the passions of both parties being exasperated by the injuries each had inflicted on the other. The Ruthven conspiracy, having been declared treason, as it undoubtedly was, Dury preached in its favour, and openly defended it; and although, under the influence of momentary fear, he afterwards withdrew what he had said,[253] it was evident, from other circumstances, that his feelings were shared by his brethren.[254] A number of them being summoned before the king for their seditious language, bad him take heed what he was about, and reminded him that no occupant of the throne had ever prospered after the ministers had begun to threaten him.[255] Melville, who exercised immense influence over both clergy and people, bearded the king to his face, refused to account for what he had delivered in the pulpit, and told James that he perverted the laws both of God and of man.[256] Simpson likened him to Cain, and warned him to beware of the wrath of God.[257] Indeed, the spirit now displayed by the Church was so implacable, that it seemed to delight in venting itself in the most repulsive manner. In 1585, a clergyman, named Gibson, in a sermon which he preached in Edinburgh, denounced against the king the curse of Jeroboam, that he should die childless, and that his race should end with him.[258] The year after this happened, James, finding that Elizabeth was evidently determined to take his mother's life, bethought him of what was valued in that age as an unfailing resource, and desired the clergy to offer up prayers on behalf of Mary. This, they almost unanimously refused.[259] And not only did they abstain from supplication themselves, but they resolved that no one else should do what they had declined. The archbishop of Saint Andrews being about to officiate before the king, they induced a certain John Cowper to station himself in the pulpit beforehand, so as to exclude the prelate. Nor was it until the captain of the guard threatened to pull Cowper from the place he had usurped, that the service could go on, and the king be allowed to hear his own mother prayed for, in this sad crisis of her fate, when it was still uncertain whether she would be publicly executed, or whether, as was more generally believed, she would be secretly poisoned.[260]

In 1594, John Ross stated in the pulpit, that the advisers of the king were all traitors, and that the king himself was likewise a traitor. He was also a rebel and a reprobate. That such should be the case, was not surprising, considering the parentage of James. For, his mother was a Guise, and a persecutor of the saints. He avoided open persecution, and spoke them fair; but his deeds did not correspond to his words; and, so great was his dissimulation, that he was the most arrant hypocrite then living in Scotland.[261]

In 1596, David Black, one of the most influential of the Protestant ministers, delivered a sermon, which made much noise. He said, in his discourse, that all kings were children of the devil; but that in Scotland the head of the court was Satan himself. The members of the council, he added, were cormorants, and the lords of the session miscreants. The nobility had degenerated: they were godless; they were dissemblers; they were the enemies of the Church. As to the queen of England, she was nothing but an atheist. And as to the queen of Scotland, all he would say was, that they might pray for her if they list, and because it was the fashion to do so; but that there was no reason for it, inasmuch as no good would ever come from her to them.[262]

For preaching this sermon, Black was summoned by the privy-council. He refused to attend, because it was for a spiritual tribunal, and not for a temporal one, to take notice of what was uttered in the pulpit. The Church, to be sure, he would obey; but, having received his message from God, he was bound to deliver it, and it would be a dereliction of duty, if he were to allow the civil power to judge such matters.[263] The king, greatly enraged, ordered Black to be cast into prison; and it is difficult to see what other course was open to him; though it was certain that neither this, nor any measure he could adopt, would tame the indomitable spirit of the Scotch Church.[264]

In December the same year, the Church proclaimed a fast; and Welsh preached in Edinburgh a sermon, with the view of rousing the people against their rulers. The king, he told his audience, had formerly been possessed by a devil, and that devil being put out, seven worse ones had come in its place. It was, therefore, evident that James was demented, and it became lawful to take the sword of justice from his hands; just as it would be lawful for servants or children to seize the head of their family, if it had pleased heaven to afflict him with madness. In such case, the preacher observed, it would be right to lay hold of the madman, and to tie him hand and foot, that he might do no further harm.[265]

The hatred felt by the clergy was at this period so bitter, and the democratic spirit in them so strong,[266] that they seemed unable to restrain themselves; and Andrew Melville, in an audience with the king, in 1596, proceeded to personal insults, and, seizing him by the sleeve, called him God's silly vassal.[267] The large amount of truth contained in this bitter taunt, increased its pungency. But the ministers did not always confine themselves to words.[268] Their participation in the Ruthven conspiracy is unquestionable; and it is probable that they were privy to the last great peril to which James was exposed, before he escaped from that turbulent land, which he was believed to govern. Certain it is, that the Earl of Gowrie, who, in 1600, entrapped the king into his castle in order to murder him, was the hope and the mainstay of the Presbyterian clergy, and was intimately associated with their ambitious schemes.[269] Such, indeed, was their infatuation on behalf of the assassin, that, when his conspiracy was defeated, and he himself slain, several of the ministers propagated a report that Gowrie had fallen a victim to the royal perfidy, and that, in point of fact, the only plot which ever existed was one concocted by the king, with fatal art, against his mild and innocent host.[270]

An absurdity of this sort[271] was easily believed in an ignorant, and, therefore, a credulous, age. That the clergy should have propagated it, and that in this, as in many other cases, they should have laboured with malignant industry to defame the character of their prince,[272] will astonish no one who knows how quickly the wrath of the Church can be roused, and how ready the spiritual classes always are to cover, even with the foulest calumny, those who stand in their way. The evidence which has been collected, proves that the Presbyterian ministers carried their violence against the constituted authorities of the state, to an indecent, if not to a criminal, length; and we cannot absolve them from the charge of being a restless and unscrupulous body, greedy after power, and grossly intolerant of whatever opposed their own views. Still, the real cause of their conduct was, the spirit of their age, and the peculiarities of their position. None of us can be sure that, if we were placed exactly as they were placed, we should have acted differently. Now, indeed, we cannot read of their proceedings, as they are recorded in their own Assemblies, and by the historians of their own Church, without an uneasy feeling of dislike, I had almost said of disgust, at finding ourselves in presence of so much of superstition, of chicanery, of low, sordid arts, and yet, withal, of arrogant and unbridled insolence. The truth, however, is, that in Scotland, the age was evil, and the evil rose to the surface. The times were out of joint, and it was hard to set them right. The long prevalence of anarchy, of ignorance, of poverty, of force, of fraud, of domestic tumult, and of foreign invasion, had reduced Scotland to a state which is scarcely possible for us to realize. Hereafter, I shall give some evidence of the effect which this produced on the national character, and of the serious mischief which it wrought. In the mean time, we should, in fairness to the Scotch clergy, admit that the condition of their country affords the best explanation of their conduct. Everything around them was low and coarse; the habits of men, in their daily life, were violent, brutal, and utterly regardless of common decency; and, as a natural consequence, the standard of human actions was so depressed, that upright and well-meaning persons did not shrink from doing what to us, in our advanced state of society, seems incredible. Let us, then, not be too rash in this matter. Let us not be too forward in censuring the leading actors in that great crisis through which Scotland passed, during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Much they did, which excites our strongest aversion. But one thing they achieved, which should make us honour their memory, and repute them benefactors of their species. At a most hazardous moment, they kept alive the spirit of national liberty.[273] What the nobles and the crown had put in peril, that did the clergy save. By their care, the dying spark was kindled into a blaze. When the light grew dim, and flickered on the altar, their hands trimmed the lamp, and fed the sacred flame. This is their real glory, and on this they may well repose. They were the guardians of Scotch freedom, and they stood to their post. Where danger was, they were foremost. By their sermons, by their conduct, both public and private, by the proceedings of their Assemblies, by their bold and frequent attacks upon persons, without regard to their rank, nay, even by the very insolence with which they treated their superiors, they stirred up the minds of men, woke them from their lethargy, formed them to habits of discussion, and excited that inquisitive and democratic spirit, which is the only effectual guarantee the people can ever possess against the tyranny of those who are set over them. This was the work of the Scotch clergy; and all hail to them who did it. It was they who taught their countrymen to scrutinize, with a fearless eye, the policy of their rulers. It was they who pointed the finger of scorn at kings and nobles, and laid bare the hollowness of their pretensions. They ridiculed their claims, and jeered at their mysteries. They tore the veil, and exposed the tricks of the scene which lay behind. The great ones of the earth, they covered with contempt; and those who were above them, they cast down. Herein, they did a deed which should compensate for all their offences, even were their offences ten times as great. By discountenancing that pernicious and degrading respect which men are too apt to pay to those whom accident, and not merit, has raised above them, they facilitated the growth of a proud and sturdy independence, which was sure to do good service at a time of need. And that time came quicker than any one had expected. Within a very few years, James became master of the resources of England, and attempted, by their aid, to subvert the liberties of Scotland. The shameful enterprise, which he began, was continued by his cruel and superstitious son. How their attempts failed; how Charles I., in the effort, shipwrecked his fortune, and provoked a rebellion, which brought to the scaffold that great criminal, who dared to conspire against the people, and who, as the common enemy and oppressor of all, was at length visited with the just punishment of his sins, is known to every reader of our history. It is also well known, that, in conducting the struggle, the English were greatly indebted to the Scotch, who had, moreover, the merit of being the first to lift their hand against the tyrant. What, however, is less known, but is undoubtedly true, is, that both nations owe a debt they can never repay to those bold men who, during the latter part of the sixteenth century, disseminated, from their pulpits and Assemblies, sentiments which the people cherished in their hearts, and which, at a fitting moment, they reproduced, to the dismay, and eventually to the destruction, of those who threatened their liberties.

Footnotes:

[88] ‘The Church was eminently favoured by Albany.’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 86. But Pinkerton misunderstands his policy in regard to the nobles.

[89] Skene's Highlanders, vol. ii. pp. 72–74; Browne's History of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 162, vol. iv. pp. 435, 436.

[90] Chalmers (Caledonia, vol. i. pp. 826, 827), referring to the state of things before Albany, says, ‘There is not a trace of any attempt by Robert II. to limit the power of the nobles, whatever he may have added, by his improvident grants, to their independence. He appears not to have attempted to raise the royal prerogative from the debasement in which the imprudence and misfortunes of David II. had left it.’ And, of his successor, Robert III., ‘So mild a prince, and so weak a man, was not very likely to make any attempt upon the power of others, when he could scarcely support his own.’

[91] In 1476, ‘the Earldom of Ross was inalienably annexed to the Crown; and a great blow was thus struck at the power and grandeur of a family which had so repeatedly disturbed the tranquillity of Scotland.’ Gregory's History of the Western Highlands, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 50. In 1493, ‘John, fourth and last Lord of the Isles, was forfeited, and deprived of his title and estates.’ Ibid. p. 58.

[92] As those who held crown lands were legally, though not in reality, the king's tenants, the act declared, that ‘gif it like the king, he may ger sūmonde all and sindry his tenand at lauchfull day and place to schawe thar chartis.’ The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 4, § 9, edit. folio, 1814.

[93] ‘On the 8th June, 1425, James issued a commission to Henry, bishop of St. Andrews, authorising him to resume all alienations from the Church, with power of anathema, and orders to all justiciaries to assist.’ This curious paper is preserved in Harl. Ms. 4637, vol. iii. f. 189. Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 116. Archbishop Spottiswoode, delighted with his policy, calls him a ‘good king,’ and says that he built for the Carthusians ‘a beautiful monastery at Perth, bestowing large revenues upon the same.’ Spottiswoode's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 113. And Keith assures us that, on one occasion, James I. went so far as to give to one of the bishops ‘a silver cross, in which was contained a bit of the wooden cross on which the apostle St. Andrew had been crucified.’ Keith's Catalogue of Scotch Bishops, Edinburgh, 1755, 4to, p. 67.

[94] Compare Balfour's Annales, vol. i. pp. 153–156, with Pinkerton's History, vol. i. pp. 113–115. Between these two authorities there is a slight, but unimportant, discrepancy.

[95] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 95–98; Skene's Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 75; and an imperfect narrative in Gregory's History of the Western Highlands, p. 35.

[96] Tytler (History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 126), under the year 1433, says: ‘In the midst of his labours for the pacification of his northern dominions, and his anxiety for the suppression of heresy, the king never forgot his great plan for the diminution of the exorbitant power of the nobles.’ See also p. 84. ‘It was a principle of this enterprising monarch, in his schemes for the recovery and consolidation of his own power, to cultivate the friendship of the clergy, whom he regarded as a counterpoise to the nobles.’ Lord Somerville (Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. i. p. 173) says, that the superior nobility were ‘never or seldome called to counsell dureing this king's reign.’

[97] Compare Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 263, with Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. x. p. 286.

[98] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 157, 158.

[99] Lindsay of Pitscottie (Chronicles, vol. i. p. 2) says, that directly after the death of James I., ‘Alexander, Earle of Douglas, being uerie potent in kine and friendis, contemned all the kingis officeris, in respect of his great puissance.’ The best account I have seen of the rise of the Douglases is in Chalmers' learned, but ill-digested, work, Caledonia, vol. i. pp. 579–583.

[100] In 1440, ‘the chief of that family had revenues perhaps equivalent to those of the Scottish monarch.’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 192.

[101] ‘It may give us some idea of the immense power possessed at this period by the Earl of Douglas, when we mention, that on this chivalrous occasion, the military suite by which he was surrounded, and at the head of which he conducted the Scottish champions to the lists, consisted of a force amounting to five thousand men.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 215. The old historian of his family says: ‘He is not easy to be dealt with; they must have mufles that would catch such a cat. Indeed, he behaved himself as one that thought he would not be in danger of them; he entertained a great family; he rode ever well accompanied when he came in publick; 1000 or 2000 horse were his ordinary train.’ Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. 273, 274, reprinted Edinburgh, 1743.

[102] In the seventeenth century, ‘To be without a chief, involved a kind of disrepute; and those who had no distinct personal position of their own, would find it necessary to become a Gordon or a Crichton, as prudence or inclination might point out.’ Burton's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. p. 207. Compare Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. iii. p. 250, on ‘the protective surname of Douglas;’ and Skene's Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 252, on the extreme importance attached to the name of Macgregor.

[103] ‘Men of the greatest puissance and force next the Douglases that were in Scotland in their times.’ Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 344. The great power of the Earls of Ross in the north, dates from the thirteenth century. See Skene's Highlanders, vol. i. pp. 133, 134, vol. ii. p. 52.

[104] In 1445, the Earl of Douglas concluded ‘ane offensiue and defensiue league and combinatione aganist all, none excepted, (not the king himselue), with the Earle of Crawfurd, and Donald, Lord of the Isles; wich was mutually sealled and subscriued by them three, the 7 day of Marche.’ Balfour's Annales, vol. i. p. 173. This comprised the alliance of other noble families. ‘He maid bandis with the Erle of Craufurd, and with Donald lorde of the Ylis, and Erle of Ross, to take part every ane with other, and with dyvers uther noble men also.’ Lesley's History of Scotland, from 1436 to 1561, p. 18.

[105] An interesting account of this dastardly crime is given in Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. 274–288, where great, but natural, indignation is expressed. On the other hand, Lesley, bishop of Ross, narrates it with a cold-blooded indifference, characteristic of the ill-will which existed between the nobles and the clergy, and which prevented him from regarding the murder of two children as an offence. ‘And eftir he was set doun to the burd with the governour, chancellour, and otheris noble men present, the meit was sudantlie removed, and ane bullis heid presented, quhilk in thay daies was ane signe of executione; and incontinent the said erle, David his broder, and Malcolme Fleming of Cummernald, wer heidit before the castell yett of Edenburgh.’ Lesley's History, p. 16.

[106] The cousin of the boys who were murdered in 1440. See Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. 297, 816.

[107] ‘With assurance under the broad seal.’ Hume's House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 351. See also Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire, Edinb. 1777, pp. 246, 322, 323.

[108] Hume's House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. 351–353. The king ‘stabbed him in the breast with a dagger. At the same instant Patrick Gray struck him on the head with a pole-ax. The rest that were attending at the door, hearing the noise, entred, and fell also upon him; and, to show their affection to the king, gave him every man his blow after he was dead.’ Compare Lindsay of Pitscottie's Chronicles of Scotland, vol. i. p. 103. ‘He strak him throw the bodie thairwith; and thairefter the guard, hearing the tumult within the chamber, rusched in and slew the earle out of hand.’

[109] In Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire, pp. 99, 100, the alienation of the nobles from the Church is dated ‘from the middle of the fifteenth century;’ and this is perhaps correct in regard to general dislike, though the movement may be clearly traced fifty years earlier.

[110] See Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 33, edit. folio, 1814; respecting the ‘statute of haly kirk quhilk is oppressit and hurt.’

[111] In 1449, James II., ‘with that affectionate respect for the clergy, which could not fail to be experienced by a prince who had successfully employed their support and advice to escape from the tyranny of his nobles, granted to them some important privileges.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 226. See also p. 309. Among many similar measures, he conceded to the monks of Paisley some important powers of jurisdiction that belonged to the Crown. Charter, 13th January, 1451–2, in Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 823.

[112] Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 188, 209, 247, 254. Keith's Catalogue of Scotch Bishops, p. 19. Ridpath's Border History, p. 298. Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 101. In Somerville's Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. i. p. 213, it is stated, under the year 1452, that fear of the great nobles ‘had once possest his majestie with some thoughts of going out of the countrey; but that he was perswaded to the contrary by Bishop Kennedie, then Archbishop of Saint Andrewes, whose counsell at that tyme and eftirward, in most things he followed, which at length proved to his majesties great advantage.’ See also Lesley's History, p. 23. ‘The king wes put to sic a sharp point, that he wes determinit to haif left the realme, and to haif passit in Fraunce by sey, were not that bischop James Kennedy of St. Androis causit him to tarrye.’

[113] ‘His lands were plundered by the Earl of Crawford and Alexander Ogilvie of Inveraritie, at the instigation of the Earl of Douglas, who had farther instructed them to seize, if possible, the person of the bishop, and to put him in irons.’ Memoir of Kennedy, in Chambers' Lives of Scotchmen, vol. iii. p. 307, Glasgow, 1834. ‘Sed Kennedus et ætate, et consilio, ac proinde auctoritate cæteros anteibat. In eum potissimum ira est versa. Crafordiæ comes et Alexander Ogilvius conflato satis magno exercitu, agros ejus in Fifa latè populati, dum prædam magis, quam causam sequuntur, omni genere cladis in vicina etiam prædia grassati, nemine congredi auso pleni prædarum in Angusiam revertuntar. Kennedus ad sua arma conversus comitem Crafordiæ disceptationem juris fugientem diris ecclesiasticis est prosecutus.’ Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xi. p. 306.

[114] ‘This holie bischop schew ane similitud to the king, quhilk might bring him to experience how he might invaid againes the Douglass, and the rest of the conspiratouris. This bischop tuik furth ane great scheife of arrowes knitt togidder werrie fast, and desired him to put thame to his knie, and break thame. The king said it was not possible, becaus they war so many, and so weill fastened togidder. The bischop answeired, it was werrie true, bot yitt he wold latt the king sea how to break thame: and pulled out on be on, and tua be tua, quhill he had brokin thame all; then said to the king, “Yea most doe with the conspiratouris in this manner, and thair complices that are risen againes yow, quho are so many in number, and so hard knit togidder in conspiracie againes yow, that yea cannot gett thame brokin togidder. Butt be sick pratick as I have schowin yow be the similitud of thir arrowes, that is to say, yea must conqueis and break lord by lord be thamselffis, for yea may not deall with thame all at once.”’ Lindsay of Pitscottie's Chronicles of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 172, 173.

[115] ‘He wald nocht suffer the noblemen to come to his presence, and to governe the realme be thair counsell.’ Lesley's History of Scotland, p. 48. ‘Wald nocht use the counsall of his nobilis.’ p. 55. ‘Excluding the nobility.’ Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. ii. p. 33. ‘The nobility seeing his resolution to ruin them.’ p. 46. ‘Hes conteming his nobility.’ Balfour's Annales, vol. i. p. 206.

[116] Also to aggrandize them. See, for instance, what ‘has obtained the name of the golden charter, from the ample privileges it contains, confirmed to Archbishop Shevez by James III. on 9th July 1480.’ Grierson's History of Saint Andrews, p. 58, Cupar, 1838.

[117] ‘Such was the influence of the aristocracy over their warlike followers, that the king was conveyed to the castle of Edinburgh, without commotion or murmur.’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 308.

[118] ‘The king and his ministers multiplied the insults which they offered to the nobility.’ … ‘A proclamation was issued, forbidding any person to appear in arms within the precincts of the court; which, at a time when no man of rank left his own house without a numerous retinue of armed followers, was, in effect, debarring the nobles from all access to the king.’ … ‘His neglect of the nobles irritated, but did not weaken them.’ History of Scotland, book i. p. 68, in Robertson's Works, edit. London, 1831.

[119] Balfour's Annales, vol. i. pp. 213, 214; Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xii. p. 358. Lindsay of Pitscottie (Chronicles, vol. i. p. 222) says: ‘This may be ane example to all kingis that cumes heirefter, not to fall from God.’ … ‘or, if he had vsed the counsall of his wyse lordis and barrones, he had not cum to sick disparatioun.’

[120] Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, folio, 1814, vol. ii. p. 232. ‘That the said abbaceis confirmit be thame sall neid na prouisioun of the court of Rome.’

[121] Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 240; and the summary of the statute (p. 21), ‘Revocation of donations, statutis, and all uthir thingis hurtand the croune or hali kirk.’ In the next year (1504), the king ‘greatly augmented’ the revenues of the bishoprick of Galloway. Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 417.

[122] Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 63; Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 135, edit. Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1849. The latter authority states, that ‘The bishop devysed wayes to King James the Fourth, how he might attaine to great gaine and profit. He advised him to call his barons and all those that held any lands within the realme, to show their evidents by way of recognition; and, if they had not sufficient writings for their warrant, to dispone upon their lands at his pleasure; for the which advice he was greatlie hated. But the king, perceaving the countrie to grudge, agreed easilie with the possessors.’

[123] The Regency of Albany, little understood by the earlier historians, has been carefully examined by Mr. Tytler, in whose valuable, though too prolix, work, the best account of it will be found. Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 98–160, Edinburgh, 1845. On the hostility between Albany and the nobles, see Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, p. 99; and, on the revival of their power in the north, after the death of James IV., see Gregory's History of the Western Highlands, pp. 114, 115.

[124] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 180–182: ‘Within a few months, there was not an office of trust or emolument in the kingdom, which was not filled by a Douglas, or by a creature of that house.’ See also pp. 187, 194; and Keith's Catalogue of Scotch Bishops, pp. 22, 23. Beaton, who was so rudely dispossessed of the chancellorship, that, according to Keith, he was, in 1525, obliged ‘to lurk among his friends for fear of his life,’ is mentioned, in the preceding year, as having been the main supporter of Albany's government; ‘that most hath favoured the Duke of Albany.’ State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII., vol. iv. p. 97, 4to, 1836.

[125] The complete power of the Douglases lasted from the cessation of Albany's regency to the escape of the king, in 1528. Keith's History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland, edit. Edinburgh, 1835, vol. i. pp. 33–35. Compare Balfour's Annales, vol. i. p. 257. ‘The Earle of Angus violentley takes one him the gouerniment, and retanes the king in effecte a prisoner with him; during wich tyme he, the Earle of Lennox, and George Douglas, his auen brother, frely disposses vpone all affaires both of churche and staite.’

[126] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 195, 196. The curious work, entitled A Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 10, says, ‘In the zeir of God 1500, tuantie aucht zeiris, the kingis grace by slicht wan away fra the Douglassis.’ From Stirling, he repaired to Edinburgh, on 6th July 1528, and went to ‘the busshop of Sainct Andros loegeing.’ See a letter written on the 18th of July 1528, by Lord Dacre to Wolsey, in State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. iv. p. 501, 4to, 1836. Compare a proclamation on 10th September 1528, in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. part i. pp. 138*, 139*, Edinburgh, 4to, 1833. I particularly indicate these documents, because Lindsay of Pitscottie (in his Chronicles of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 335) erroneously places the flight of James in 1527; and he is generally one of the most accurate of the old writers, if indeed he be the author of the work which bears his name.

[127] State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. iv. p. 501.

[128] ‘Archibald was depryvit of the thesaurarie, and placit thairin Robert Cairncorse, abbot of Halyrudhous. And als was tane fra the said Archibald the privie seill, and was givin to the bischope of Dunkell.’ A Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 11.

[129] Tytler (History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 196) says: ‘His first act was to summon a council, and issue a proclamation, that no lord or follower of the house of Douglas should dare to approach within six miles of the court, under pain of treason.’ For this, no authority is cited; and the historian of the Douglas family distinctly states, ‘within twelve miles of the king, under pain of death.’ Hume's House of Douglas, vol. ii. p. 99. See also Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 10: ‘that nane of thame nor thair familiaris cum neir the king be tuelf myllis.’ The reason was, that ‘the said kingis grace haid greit suspicioun of the temporall lordis, becaus thaj favourit sum pairt the Douglassis.’ Diurnal, p. 12.

[130] ‘The Erle of Caithnes and fyve hundreth of his men wes slayne and drownit in the see.’ Lesley's History of Scotland, p. 141.

[131] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 203, 204.

[132] Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 324, edit. folio, 1814.

[133] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 207.

[134] Tytler, vol. iv. p. 212.

[135] ‘His preference of the clergy to the temporal lords disgusted these proud chiefs.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 230. See also p. 236. His reasons are stated by himself, in a curious letter, which he wrote so late as 1541, to Henry VIII. ‘We persaif,’ writes James, ‘be zoure saidis writingis yat Ze ar informyt yat yair suld be sum thingis laitlie attemptat be oure kirkmen to oure hurte and skaith, and contrar oure mynde and plesure. We can nocht understand, quhat suld move Zou to beleif the samyn, assuring Zou We have nevir fund bot faithfull and trew obedience of yame at all tymes, nor yai seik nor attemptis nouthir jurisdictioun nor previlegijs, forthir nor yai have usit sen the first institutioun of the Kirk of Scotland, quhilk We may nocht apoun oure conscience alter nor change in the respect We have to the honour and faith of God and Halikirk, and douttis na inconvenient be yame to come to Ws and oure realme yerthrou; for sen the Kirk wes first institute in our realme, the stait yairof hes nevir failzeit, bot hes remanyt evir obedient to oure progenitouris, and in our tyme mair thankefull to Ws, nor evir yai wer of before.’ This letter, which, in several points of view, is worth reading, will be found in State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. pp. 188–190, 4to, 1836.

[136] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 212, 213, and Arnot's History of Edinburgh, 4to, 1788, p. 468: ‘fifteen ordinary judges, seven churchmen, seven laymen, and a president, whom it behoved to be a churchman.’ The statute, as printed in the folio edition of 1814 (Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 335) says ‘xiiij psouñs half spūale half temporall wt ane president.’ Mr. Lawson (Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 81) supposes that it was the Archbishop of St. Andrews who advised the erection of this tribunal.

[137] Keith, who evidently does not admire this part of the history of his country, says, under the year 1546, ‘Several of our nobility found it their temporal interest, as much as their spiritual, to sway with the new opinions as to religious matters.’ Keith's Affairs of Church and State, vol. i. pp. 112, 113. Later, and with still more bluntness: ‘The noblemen wanted to finger the patrimony of the kirkmen.’ vol. iii. p. 11.

[138] ‘In the month of August (1534), the bishops having gotten fitt opportunitie, renewed their battell aganest Jesus Christ. David Stratilon, a gentelman of the House of Lawrestoune, and Mr. Norman Gowrlay, was brought to judgement in the Abby of Halyrudhouse. The king himself, all cloathed with reid, being present, grait pains war taken upon David Stratoun to move him to recant and burn his bill; bot he, ever standing to his defence, was in end adjudged to the fire. He asked grace at the king. The bishops answred proudlie, that “the king's hands war bound, and that he had no grace to give to such as were by law condemned.” So was he, with Mr. Norman, after dinner, upon the 27th day of Agust, led to a place beside the Rude of Greenside, between Leth and Edinbrug, to the intent that the inhabitants of Fife, seeing the fire, might be striken with terrour and feare.’ Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. part i. p. 210*. Also Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 106, 107.

[139] ‘It appears, by a letter in the State-paper Office, that Henry remonstrated against this title being given to James.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 223. See also p. 258.

[140] In 1535, ‘his privy council were mostly ecclesiastics.’ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 222. And Sir Ralph Sadler, during his embassy to Scotland in 1539–40, writes: ‘So that the king, as far as I can perceive, is of force driven to use the bishops and his clergy as his only ministers for the direction of his realm. They be the men of wit and policy that I see here; they be never out of the king's ear. And if they smell any thing that in the least point may touch them, or that the king seem to be content with any such thing, straight they inculk to him, how catholic a prince his father was, and feed him both with fair words and many, in such wise as by those policies they lead him (having also the whole governance of his affairs) as they will.’ State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler, Edinb., 1809, 4to, vol. i. p. 47.

[141] State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 128. A Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 22. The Reverend Mr. Kirkton pronounces that the new queen was ‘ane egge of the bloody nest of Guise.’ Kirkton's History of the Church of Scotland, edited by Sharpe, Edinburgh, 1817, 4to, p. 7.

[142] ‘At his return home, he was made coadjutor, and declared future successor to his uncle in the primacy of St. Andrews, in which see he came to be fully invested upon the death of his uncle the next year, 1539.’ Keith's Catalogue of Scotch Bishops, pp. 23, 24.

[143] M'Crie's Life of Knox, p. 20. Spottiswoode's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 139. Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 178. Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of the Reformers, vol. i. p. 100.

[144] Tytler (History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 241) says, that the cruelties of 1539 forced ‘many of the persecuted families to embrace the interests of the Douglases.’

[145] It is asserted of the Douglases, that, early in the sixteenth century, their ‘alliances and power were equal to one-half of the nobility of Scotland.’ Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. i. p. 8. See also, on their connexions, Hume's House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. xix. 252, 298, vol. ii. p. 293.

[146] Henry VIII., ‘in the year 1532, sought it directly, among the conditions of peace, that the Douglas, according to his promise, should be restored. For King Henry's own part, he entertained them with all kind of beneficence and honour, and made both the Earl and Sir George of his Privy Council.’ Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. ii. pp. 105, 106. James was very jealous of any communication taking place between the Douglases and his other subjects; but it was impossible for him to prevent it. See a letter which he wrote to Sir Thomas Erskine (in Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. ii. p. 193, Aberdeen, 1842, 4to), beginning, ‘I commend me rycht hartly to yow, and weit ye that it is murmuryt hyr that ye sould a spolkyn with Gorge and Archebald Dougles in Ingland, quhylk wase again my command and your promys quhan we departyt.’ See also the cases of Lady Trakware, John Mathesone, John Hume, and others, in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. part i. pp. 161*, 177*, 202*, 243*, 247*.

[147] ‘The Douglases were still maintained with high favour and generous allowances in England; their power, although nominally extinct, was still far from being destroyed; their spies penetrated into every quarter, followed the king to France, and gave information of his most private motions; their feudal covenants and bands of manrent still existed, and bound many of the most potent nobility to their interest; whilst the vigour of the king's government, and his preference of the clergy to the temporal lords, disgusted these proud chiefs, and disposed them to hope for a recovery of their influence from any change which might take place.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 229, 230. These bonds of manrent, noticed by Tytler, were among the most effective means by which the Scotch nobles secured their power. Without them, it would have been difficult for the aristocracy to have resisted the united force of the Crown and the Church. On this account, they deserve special attention. Chalmers (Caledonia, vol. i. p. 824) could find no bond of manrent earlier than 1354; but in Lord Somerville's Memorie of the Somervilles, edit. Edinburgh, 1815, vol. i. p. 74, one is mentioned in 1281. This is the earliest instance I have met with; and they did not become very common till the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Compare Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. ii. p. 19. Somerville's Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. i. p. 234. Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. iii. p. 83. Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, pp. 142, 143. Skene's Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 186. Gregory's History of the Western Highlands, p. 126. Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 55. Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. ii. pp. cvi. 93, 251, vol. iv. pp. xlviii. 179. As these covenants were extremely useful in maintaining the balance of power, and preventing the Scotch monarchy from becoming despotic, acts of parliament were of course passed against them. See one in 1457, and another in 1555, respecting ‘lige’ and ‘bandis of manrent and mantenance,’ in Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, folio, 1814, vol. ii. pp. 50, 495. Such enactments being opposed to the spirit of the age, and adverse to the exigencies of society, produced no effect upon the general practice, though they caused the punishment of several individuals. Manrent was still frequent until about 1620 or 1630, when the great social revolution was completed, by which the power of the aristocracy was subordinated to that of the Church. Then, the change of affairs effected, without difficulty, and indeed spontaneously, what the legislature had vainly attempted to achieve. The nobles, gradually sinking into insignificance, lost their spirit, and ceased to resort to those contrivances by which they had long upheld their order. Bonds of manrent became every year less common, and it is doubtful if there is any instance of them after 1661. See Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. pp. 32, 33. It is, however, so dangerous to assert a negative, that I do not wish to rely on this date, and some few cases may exist later; but if so, they are very few, and it is certain that, speaking generally, the middle of the seventeenth century is the epoch of their extinction.

[148] Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 370, 371. ‘That na mañ quhatsūeuir stait or conditiouñ he be luge ressauve cherish nor favor ony heretike.’ … ‘And alswa that na persouñ that hes bene suspectit of heresie howbeit thai be ressauit to pēnance and grace sall in this realme exers haif nor brouk ony honest estait degre office nor judicato^r spūall nor tēporale in burgh nor w^tout nor na salbe admittit to be of ouŕ counsale.’

[149] Lindsay of Pitscottie (Chronicles, vol. ii. p. 383) says, that they ‘devysed to put ane discord and variance betwixt the lordis and gentlmen with thair prince; for they delaited, and gave vp to the king in writt, to the number of thrittie scoir of earles, lordis, and barrones, gentlmen and craftismen, that is, as thei alledgit, wer all heretickis, and leived not after the Pope's lawis, and ordinance of the hollie kirk; quhilk his grace sould esteme as ane capitall cryme, to ony man that did the same’ … ‘all thair landis, rentes, guidis, and geir apperteanis propperlie to your grace, for thair contempt of our hollie father the Pope, and his lawis, and high contempt of your grace's authoritie.’ This document was found among the king's papers after his death, when it appeared that, of the six hundred names on the list, more than three hundred belonged to the principal nobility: ‘Eum timorem auxerunt codicilli post regis interitum reperti, e quibus supra trecentorum è prima nobilitate nomina continebantur.’ Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xv. p. 424. Compare Sadler's State Papers, 1809, vol. i. p. 94; and Watson's Historicall Collections of Ecclesiastick Affairs in Scotland, 1657, p. 22. According to Watson, it ‘was called the bloudy scroll.’

[150] In the autumn of 1542, James ‘was encouraged by the clergy to engage in a war against King Henry, who both assured him of victory, since he fought against an heretical prince, and advanced an annuity of 50,000 crowns for prosecuting the war.’ Crawfurd's History of the Shire of Renfrew, 1782, 4to, part i. p. 48. Compare, in State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 154, a letter written, in 1539, by Norfolk to Cromwell: ‘By diverse other waies I am advertised that the clergie of Scotlande be in such feare that their king shold do theire, as the kinges highnes hath done in this realme, that they do their best to bring their master to the warr; and by many waies I am advertised that a great parte of the temporaltie there wold their king shold followe our insample, wich I pray God yeve hym grace to come unto.’ Even after the battle of Solway, the policy of the clergy was notoriously the same. ‘And undoubtedlie, the kyrkemen labor, by all the meanes they can, to empeche the unitie and establishment of thiese two realmes; uppon what groundes ye can easelie conjecture.’ Letter from Sadler to Parr, dated Edinburgh, 27th March 1543, in State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 271, 4to, 1836.

[151] ‘Ten thousand Scottish troops fled at the sight of three hundred English cavalry, with scarce a momentary resistance.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 264.

[152] The best account of these events will be found in Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 260–267. I have also consulted Ridpath's Border History, pp. 372, 373. Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. pp. 207–209. Lesley's History, pp. 163–166. Lindsay of Pitscottie's Chronicles, vol. ii. pp. 399–406. Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 145–152. Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xiv. pp. 420, 421.

[153] ‘This defeat being so very dishonourable, especially to the clergy, who stirred up the king to that attempt, and promised him great success from it; and there being such a visible evidence of the anger of God, fighting by his providence against them, all men were struck with fear and astonishment; the bishops were ashamed to show their faces for a time.’ Stevenson's History of the Church of Scotland, reprinted, Edinburgh, 1840, p. 30.

[154] We may readily believe the assertion of an old chronicler, that ‘the nobilitie did not greatlie take his death grievouslie, because he had fined manie, imprisoned more, and caused no small few (for avoiding his displeasure) to flie into England, and rather to commit themselves to the enemie than to his anger.’ Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 210.

[155] Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. ii. p. 111.

[156] It has been often said, that this will was forged; but for such an assertion I cannot find the slightest evidence, except the declaration of Arran (Sadler's State Papers, Edinburgh, 1809, vol. i. p. 138), and the testimony, if testimony it can be called, of Scotch historians, who do not profess to have examined the handwriting, and who, being themselves Protestants, seem to suppose that the fact of a man being a cardinal, qualifies him for every crime. There is no doubt that Beaton was thoroughly unprincipled, and therefore was capable of the forgery. Still, we have no proof; and the will is such as we might have expected from the king. In regard to Arran, his affirmation is not worth the paper it is written on: for he hated Beaton; he was himself very unscrupulous; and he succeeded to the post which Beaton had to vacate on the ground that the will was forged. If such circumstances do not disqualify a witness, some of the best-established principles of evidence are false. The reader who cares to look further into this subject, may compare, in favour of the will being forged, Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xv. p. 422, Abredoniæ, 1762; Knox's History of the Reformation, edit. Laing, Edinburgh, 1846, vol. i. pp. 91, 92; Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, second edition, 4to, 1860, p. 102; and, in favour of its being genuine, Lyon's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. i. pp. 304, 305. Some other writers on the subject leave it doubtful: Tytler's History of Scotland, 1845, vol. iv. p. 274; Lawson's Roman Church in Scotland, 1836, p. 99; and a note in Keith's Church and State in Scotland, 1844, vol. i. p. 63.

[157] On the 26th of January 1542–3, ‘the said cardinall was put in pressoune in Dalkeith.’ A Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 26. See also, respecting his imprisonment, a letter written, on the 16th of March, by Angus and Douglas, in State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 263. He was then in ‘firmance.’

[158] His appointment was confirmed by Parliament on the 12th of March. Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 411: ‘tuto^r lau^tfull to the quenis grace and gounour of this realme.’ He excluded the clergy from power. On 20th March, in the same year, Sir Ralph Sadler writes to Henry VIII., that Sir George Douglas ‘brought me into the council-chamber, where I found a great number of noblemen and others at a long board, and divers standing, but not one bishop nor priest among them. At the upper end of the board sat the governour.’ Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 78.

[159] Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 415, 419, 424, 423*; and Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 285.

[160] ‘Had become a convert to its doctrines.’ Tytler's Hist. of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 286. But he, as well as the other nobles, neither knew nor cared much about doctrines; and he was, moreover, very venal. In April 1543, Sir Ralph Sadler writes to Henry VIII.: ‘And the lord Maxwell told me apart, “That, indeed, he lacked silver, and had no way of relief but to your majesty;” which he prayed me to signify unto the same. I asked him what would relieve him? and he said, 300l.; “for the which,” he said, “as your majesty seemed, when he was with your grace, to have him in more trust and credit than the rest of your majesty's prisoners, so he trusted to do you as good service as any of them; and amongst them they will do you such service, as, if the war succeed, ye shall make an easy conquest of this realm; as for his part he shall deliver into your hands, at the entry of your army, the keys of the same on the west marches, being all the strongholds there in his custody.” I offered him presently to write to my lord of Suffolk for 100l. for him if he would; but he said, “he would stay till he heard again from your majesty in that behalf.”’ Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 165.

[161] Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 415, 425. Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 83. Knox, in his History of the Reformation (edit. Laing, vol. i p. 100), archly says, ‘The cleargy hearto long repugned; butt in the end, convicted by reassonis, and by multitud of votes in thare contrare, thei also condiscended; and so, by Act of Parliament, it was maid free to all man and woman to reid the Scriptures in thair awin toung, or in the Engliss toung; and so war all Actes maid in the contrair abolished.’

[162] Or, as Keith calls them, ‘English Lords.’ History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland, vol. i. p. 80.

[163] In May 1544 the English attacked Scotland, Tytler's History, vol. iv. p. 316; and in that same month, the ‘Anglo-Scottish party’ consisted only of the Earls of Lennox and of Glencairn, since even ‘Angus, George Douglas, and their numerous and powerful adherents, joined the cardinal.’ p. 319. As to the part taken by the Scotch clergy, see, in Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 173, a letter to Henry VIII., written on the 1st of May 1543: ‘And as to the kirk-men, I assure your majesty they seek the war by all the means they can, and do daily entertain the noblemen with money and rewards to sustain the wars, rather than there should be any agreement with your majesty; thinking, verily, that if peace and unity succeed, that they shall be reformed, and lose their glory, which they had rather die, and put all this realm in hazard, than they would forego.’ See also p. 184, note.

[164] Buchanan records a very curious conversation between the regent and Douglas, which, as I do not remember to have met with elsewhere, I shall transcribe. The exact date of it is not mentioned, but, from the context, it evidently took place in 1544 or 1545. ‘Ibi cum Prorex suam deploraret solitudinem, et se a nobilitate derelictum quereretur, Duglassius ostendit “id ipsius culpa fieri, non nobilium, qui et fortunas omnes et vitam ad publicam salutem tuendam conferrent, quorum consilio contempto ad sacrificulorum nutum circumageretur, qui foris imbelles, domi seditiosi, omniumque periculorum expertes alieni laboris fructu ad suas voluptates abuterentur. Ex hoc fonte inter te et proceres facta est suspitio, quæ (quòd neutri alteris fidatis) rebus gerendis maxime est impedimento.”’ Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xv. p. 435. Buchanan was, at this time, about thirty-eight years old; and that some such conversation as that which he narrates actually took place, is, I think, highly probable, though the historian may have thrown in some touches of his own. At all events, he was too great a rhetorician to invent what his contemporaries would deem unlikely to happen; so that, from either point of view, the passage is valuable as an evidence of the deep-rooted hostility which the nobles bore towards the Church.

[165] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 337. ‘The plot is entirely unknown either to our Scottish or English historians; and now, after the lapse of nearly three centuries, has been discovered in the secret correspondence of the State-paper Office.’ The first suggestion of the murder was in April 1544. See State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 377, and the end of the Preface to vol. iv. But Mr. Tytler and the editor of the State Papers appear to have overlooked a still earlier indication of the coming crime, in Sadler's Papers. See, in that collection, vol. i. p. 77, a conversation, held in March 1543, between Sir Ralph Sadler and the Earl of Arran; Sadler being conducted by the Earl of Glencairn. On that occasion, the Earl of Arran used an expression concerning Beaton, the meaning of which Sir Ralph evidently understood. ‘“By God,” quoth he, “he shall never come out of prison whilst I may have mine own will, except it be to his farther mischief.” I allowed the same well’ (replied Sadler), ‘and said, “It were pity, but he should receive such reward as his merits did require.”’

[166] State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 560. A Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 42. Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 221–223. Lindsay of Pitscottie (Chronicles, vol. ii. p. 484) relates a circumstance respecting the murder, which is too horrible to mention, and of which it is enough to say, that it consisted of an obscene outrage committed on the corpse of the victim. Though such facts cannot now be published, they are so characteristic of the age, that they ought not to be passed over in complete silence.

[167] Respecting which, two Scotch Protestant historians have expressed themselves in the following terms: ‘God admonished men, by this judgement, that he will in end be avenged upon tyranns for their crueltie, howsoever they strenthen themselves.’ Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i. p. 224. And, whoever considers all the circumstances, ‘must acknowledge it was a stupendous act of the judgment of the Lord, and that the whole was overruled and guided by Divine Providence.’ Stevenson's History of the Church and State of Scotland, p. 38.

[168] Even the editor of M'Crie's Life of Knox, Edinburgh, 1841, p. xxxv., notices ‘the ill-timed merriment he displays in relating the foul deed’ of Beaton's murder.

[169] Shortly before his death, he said, with honest and justifiable pride, ‘What I have bene to my countrie, albeit, this vnthankfull aige will not knowe, yet the aiges to come wilbe compelled to bear witnes to the treuth.’ Bannatyne's Journal, Edinburgh, 1806. p. 119. Bannatyne was Knox's secretary. It is to be regretted that no good life of Knox should have yet been published. That by M'Crie is an undistinguishing and injudicious panegyric, which, by provoking a reaction of opinion, has damaged the reputation of the great reformer. On the other hand, the sect of Episcopalians in Scotland are utterly blind to the real grandeur of the man, and unable to discern his intense love of truth, and the noble fearlessness of his nature.

[170] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 374, 375. M'Crie's Life of Knox, pp. 27, 28. Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 154. Presbytery Displayed, 1663, 4to, p. 28. Shields' Hind let loose, 1687, pp. 14, 39, 638. In his History of the Reformation, edit. Laing, vol. i. pp. 177, 180, he calls it a ‘godly fact,’ and says, ‘These ar the workis of our God;’ which, in plain language, is terming the Deity an assassin. But, bad as this is, I agree with M'Crie, that there is no trustworthy evidence for deeming him privy to the murder. Compare, however, A Diurnal of Occurrents p. 42, with Lyon's History of St. Andrews, vol. ii. p. 364.

[171] M'Crie's Life of Knox, pp. 38, 43, 350. Argyll's Presbytery Examined, 1848, p. 19.

[172] M'Crie's Life of Knox, pp. 44, 71.