Chapter XIV

_History of the Reformation to the
Overthrow of the Roman Catholic Church._

THE sixteen conspirators who had seized the Castle of St. Andrews were soon joined by about one hundred and forty of their adherents, who formed a garrison and defied all the force at the disposal of the Regent. The Cardinal at the time of his death held the Regent’s son James, Lord Hamilton, afterwards third Earl of Arran, as a hostage. He was retained by the conspirators as a pledge for their own advantage; as the Government were afraid he would be delivered to the English. John Rough, a reformed preacher, entered the castle soon after the Cardinal’s death, and began to preach to the garrison. The Regent besieged the castle from the end of August to December without success. In April 1547, John Knox had become wearied by wandering from place to place to avoid persecution, and he felt inclined to visit the schools of Germany; but having the charge of some gentlemen’s sons, he entered the Castle of St. Andrews. During the intervals of the siege a Protestant congregation had been formed in the town, and about the end of May, Knox consented to assume the functions of their minister. Rough had been unable to match the debating powers of John Annand, the principal of St. Leonard’s College, and a firm adherent of Catholicism; but Knox, according to his own narrative, refuted all the arguments of the principal, and compelled him to retire behind the authority of the Church, which had already condemned Lutherism and all other heresies. After worsting the principal, Knox on the following Sunday preached his first public sermon in the parish church of St. Andrews, where were present John Mair, Winram, the sub-prior, many of the canons, and some of the friars. In this sermon he showed to his own satisfaction that the Roman Church was the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, and so on. A discussion then ensued between Knox on the one side, and Winram and a friar on the other; but neither party was convinced by the arguments of the other. The Catholic clergy themselves then began to preach regularly in the parish church every Sunday. Knox continued his sermons on the week days, and the numbers of those who embraced the reformed opinions increased. However, this episode in the history of the Reformation was abruptly terminated.¹

¹ Knox, Volume I., pages 181‒202; _Register of the Privy
Council_, Volume I., pages 26, 31, 33, 38, 39, 44, 47, 58;
_State Papers_, Henry VIII., Volume V., pages 563‒564; _Acts
of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 478, 479.

Meanwhile, however, the new opinions were spreading. In the month of June 1546, the Council issued a proclamation warning all persons not to pillage or destroy monastic and church buildings. It stated that――“In these troublous times it is dreaded and feared that evil disposed persons will invade, destroy, cast down, and withhold abbeys, abbey places, parish kirks, friars’ houses, nunneries, chapels, and other spiritual men’s houses, against the law of God and man, and contrary to the liberty and freedom of the holy Church and acts of parliament made and observed in all bygone times.... All and sundry were charged that none of them take upon hand any of these kirks, religious places, or houses, or to withhold, intermot, or take the same at their own hand by way of deed hereafter, or to spoil the jewels and ornament of the church ordained for God’s service and dedicated to it, under the penalty of forfeiture of life, lands, and goods.”¹ The bishops and the priests were enraged at the proceedings in St. Andrews, and they ran to the Regent, to the Queen, and the whole Council, with their complaints, crying――“What are we doing? Shall we suffer this whole realm to be infected with pernicious doctrine? Fy upon you, and upon us!”² The Queen and the French ambassador then comforted them with the assurance that matters would ere long be remedied. On the 19th of March 1547, the bishops and clergy assembled at Edinburgh, and presented to the Regent and Council a supplication, calling on them to enforce the laws against the followers of the pestilent heresies of Luther, which had not only spread in several quarters of the kingdom, but also in the Court, and the Regent’s presence, and was sometimes preached openly; and it would daily increase unless the arm of the civil power assisted the spiritual authority to arrest its progress. The Regent and the Council acceded to their request, and desired to be furnished with the names of the heretics and the teachers of heresy; “and his Grace and the temporal lords shall take them and cause the laws of the realm to be executed against them, ay, as he is required thereto, according to the laws of holy Church, and ordained this deliverance to be inserted in the books of the Council.”³

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 28‒29.

² Knox, Volume I., pages 202‒203.

³ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., page 61, 63‒64.

But the resources at the command of the Regent were not sufficient to reduce the Castle of St. Andrews, and there the heretics were practising their own forms of religion. In the end of the month of June 1547, however, a French force arrived in Scotland, and attacked the castle by sea and land. After the guns were put into position, and the batteries opened fire, the bold defenders of the castle were soon brought to submission. The garrison had imagined that they would obtain more favourable terms from the French commander and the King of France than from the Regent Arran and the Council, and surrendered themselves to the French commander.¹ But they were conveyed to France and treated as criminals. They arrived at Fecamp, a seaport about midway between Dieppe and Havre, then passed up the Seine and anchored before Rouen; and the chief gentlemen who had expected to be liberated were put into various prisons; while the rest were left in the galleys and hardly treated, among whom were James Balfour, and his two brothers, and John Knox. The Catholics both of Scotland and France rejoiced greatly at the fate of the heretics and the enemies of the late Cardinal. Knox, along with his fellow-prisoners, had to work on the galleys chained as a slave. After an imprisonment of eighteen months he obtained his liberty in 1549, upon the intercession, it was supposed, of the English Government. Knox came to England, and soon after he was appointed to preach in Berwick; but in 1550 he was removed to Newcastle, where he continued his labours. In 1551, he was appointed one of King Edward’s chaplains, and he remained in England till after the death of Edward VI. Knox left England in the beginning of March, 1554, and passed to Geneva to pursue his private studies. Soon after he was called to be minister to the English exiles in Frankfort, entering on his duties there in November 1554. But disputes arising in the congregation regarding the Book of Common Prayer, and other ceremonies, he relinquished his charge, and in March 1555, returned to Geneva.²

¹ _Diurnal of Occurrents_, page 44; Buchanan, Book XV.; Knox,
Volume I., pages 203‒206.

² Knox, Volume I., pages 206, 225‒232; Volume III., pages 156,
215, 380. Lesly’s _History Of Scotland_, page 195.

On the 28th of January, 1547, Henry VIII. died, but the policy of aggression towards Scotland was continued. The Duke of Somerset, the new Governor, invaded the kingdom with a strong army and a naval force; and on the 10th of September, 1547, the Scots risked a battle, but were completely defeated. Many of the Scots were slain, while others were taken prisoners in the flight. This disastrous defeat became known in history as the Battle of Pinkie; subsequently the Scots were reduced to great extremities. The English and Scots became much exasperated; the war assumed a fierce and ruthless character, and acts of shocking cruelty were frequently perpetrated. In 1548 a French army of seven thousand men arrived to assist the Scots; while the same year the young Queen was sent to France, and thus one cause of the war was removed. After many severe struggles, the French and the Scots drove the English out of the castles and recovered the southern districts of the kingdom. Peace was at length concluded in April 1550.

When the pressure of external enemies was removed the nation breathed more freely. But the internal political and religious conflict proceeded; and, as the contest between the old and the new religious views became closer and clearer, and the shadow of the revolution was more distinctly seen approaching, the Church and the Government acutely felt the gravity of the issues involved. When the heretics were few in number burning might have kept them down or caused them to hide their faces; but it was now perceived that if heresy was to be extinguished, other means would have to be employed. The whole body of the clergy, from the primate to the humblest monk and friar, must then betake themselves to the proper functions of their calling, and discharge their varied duties honestly and faithfully. Within the ten years immediately preceding the Reformation there were four provincial councils of the Church held in Scotland; and they enacted and adopted one hundred and thirty-one canons, the greater part of which were directed against the immoral lives of the clergy, their ignorance, and the neglect of their essential duties.¹ The provincial council of 1549 ordered a strict search to be made for heresy and heretical books, especially poems and ballads; and to make the inquest effective the inquisitors were supplied with a schedule of the chief points of heresy. Thus the chief points of heresy enumerated in the canons were――“Speaking against the rites and sacraments of the Church, especially the sacrifice of the mass, the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, extreme unction, and penance; contempt of the censures of the Church; denial of the reign of the souls of saints with Christ in glory; denial of the immortality of the soul; denial of purgatory; denial of prayer and intercession of the saints; denial of the lawfulness of images in Christian churches; denial of recompense for works of faith and charity; denial of the authority of general councils in controversies of faith; neglect of the fasts and festivals of the Church. Heretical books, especially poems and ballads against the Church or clergy, were to be diligently sought after and burned.”

¹ See under pages 40‒43. Also _Statutes of the Scottish Church_,
Volume II., pages 81‒176. A number of the canons enacted in
the provincial council of 1549 were adopted from the decrees
of the Council of Trent passed in June, 1546, and March,
1547; _Statutes of the Scottish Church_, Volume I., page 150.

The part which the popular poems and ballads played in the Reformation struggle will be illustrated in the chapter on the literature of the period. One of the canons of the Provincial Council of 1552 stated that――“Even in the most populous parishes very few of the parishioners came to mass or to sermon, that in the time of service jesting and irreverence go on within the church, sports and secular business in the porch and the churchyard. It therefore enacted that the name of every person wilfully absenting himself from his parish church, shall be taken down by the curate and reported to the Rural Dean, and that all traffic in church porches, in churchyards, or in the immediate neighbourhood, shall be forbidden on Sundays and other holidays during divine worship.”

It was in the Provincial Council of 1552 that the publication of the Catechism was sanctioned. At that time it was openly confessed that――“The inferior clergy and the prelates for the most part are not in the meanwhile sufficiently learned to instruct the people rightly in the Catholic faith, in things necessary to salvation, or to reclaim them from the path of error.... This work, since commonly known as Archbishop Hamilton’s Catechism, was to be read to the people in church, before high mass, when there was no sermon, as much as would occupy half an hour, being read from the pulpit every Sunday and holiday with a loud voice, clearly, distinctly, impressively, and solemnly by the rector, vicar, or curate, in his surplice and stole. The clergy were enjoined to exercise themselves daily in reading it, lest their stammering or breaking down might move the jeers of the people; and heavy penalties, fine and imprisonment, imposed on all who should fail to observe any part of the canons regarding it.”¹

¹ _Statutes of the Scottish Church_, Volume I., pages 150, 151,
154; Volume II., pages 117‒120, 135‒139.

Thus the party within the pale of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland wished to redress gross abuses without demolishing the old organisations. The Catechism which they produced in the vernacular for the use of the clergy, was characterised by moderate statement and graceful composition. But all the canons and the catechism were of no avail; they were too late, as the fiat had gone forth; the accumulated corruptions of many generations had resulted in a system of institutions incapable of reformation from within; the features of purity, the love of truth and justice had departed from their walls and altars; the great ethical principles at the heart of all true religion had waned dim, and there was no glowing rays to lighten up the darkness which enveloped the Church.

In the summer of 1550, Adam Wallace, a layman from Ayrshire, a man of humble rank, had been occasionally engaged in teaching the children of Cockburn of Ormiston, was accused of heresy. He was seized and conveyed to Edinburgh, and tried before the bishops, the Regent, the Earl of Huntly, and others. Wallace was accused for having assumed to preach without authority, and of reading the Scriptures. He denied having preached in public, but admitted that he had read the Bible, and sometimes added a word of exhortation. Then one of his accusers said, “What shall we leave to the bishops and churchmen to do, if every man shall be a babbler upon the Bible.” Wallace replied that it would befit them better to speak more reverently about the Word of God. Questions were put to him touching the sacraments, prayer for the dead, and other points; and at last, the Earl of Huntly asked him what he thought of the mass. Wallace replied that he could find no authority for it in the Word of God, and therefore it was idolatry in the sight of God. Then they all cried “Heresy! heresy!” He was condemned, and burned on the Castle hill of Edinburgh, where he met his doom with firmness and faith.¹

¹ Knox, Volume I., pages 237‒241; Foxe, pages 627‒628.

When Paul III. ascended the papal throne in 1834, he signalised the event by the elevation of several distinguished men to the College of Cardinals without any other object than that of their personal merits. Some of the new Cardinals held opinions which inclined to Protestantism; and by the command of the Pope himself, they prepared a plan for the reform of the Church. When this became known to the Protestants, they rejected it because they had already passed beyond its most liberal proposals. Various other attempts to effect a reconciliation were equally unsuccessful.

In connection with the view of the Reformation, it is necessary to touch briefly on the proceedings of the Council of Trent. As indicated above, a certain number of thoughtful Catholics were willing to make considerable concessions in the form of redressing prevalent abuses. Still a line had to be drawn somewhere, and when it was drawn by the Council of Trent, the Protestants found themselves beyond it. But taking a view of the conditions and circumstances of the nations of Europe, it appeared that the final decision and the conclusions of the Council of Trent were greatly influenced by political interests. As religion had been so long and so much mingled with the politics and the secular affairs of the world, the great majority of the members of the Council were unable to realise the necessity of such a measure of disentanglement as the principles of the Reformation implied; while the strong feeling naturally associated with an inherited belief, the importance attached to tradition, and the efficacy ascribed to external ceremonies in the Roman Catholic Church, were so powerful that they overruled the deliberations of this memorable Council.¹

¹ Ranke’s _History of the Popes_, Volume I., pages 110‒113;
1847. Buckley’s _History of the Council of Trent_, pages
68‒76; 1852.

After many obstacles and circumstances unfavourable to the assembling of the Council of Trent had been overcome, it was opened in December 1545. There was no representative from Scotland at the Council, although a provincial council of the Scottish clergy which met at St. Andrews in March 1546, and imposed a tax of two thousand and five hundred pounds for the expenses of deputies from Scotland to Trent. The tax appears to have been paid, but no Scottish delegate attended the Council. The position of the Church in Scotland was so perilous that Cardinal Beaton, though thrice summoned by the Pope to share the deliberations of the Vatican, did not venture to leave Scotland.¹ When the opening ceremonials and various preliminary matters were disposed of, they proceeded to discuss revelation and the sources from which the knowledge of it was derived. At this stage, some proposals were enunciated in favour of opinions tending towards Protestantism. The Bishop of Chiogga insisted that nothing but Scripture should be admitted; he maintained that the gospel contained all that was necessary. Seripando, the general of the Augustines, also argued that a distinction should be drawn between the canonical books of Scripture and those not yet received as canonical, such as the Proverbs and Books of Wisdom; and that the first class only be used for proving the doctrines of belief. But they found few supporters, and there was an overwhelming majority against these views. The Council at last adopted the resolution that those unwritten traditions which had been received from the mouth of Christ, or by the Holy Spirit, and preserved by a continuous succession in the Catholic Church, were to be regarded with the same veneration and of equal authority with the Scriptures. The Vulgate was declared to be an authentic translation, and it was enjoined that it should be printed with the greatest care as soon as possible.² In the discussion touching the reception of the Vulgate there was much diversity of opinion expressed in the Council; and the following example of the line of argument taken by one party of the Fathers has an interest of its own:――“That if the providence of God hath given an authentical Scripture to the synagogue, and an authentical New Testament to the Grecians, it cannot be said without derogation that the Church of Rome, more beloved than the rest, hath wanted this great benefit; and therefore that the same Holy Ghost who did dictate the holy books hath dictated also that translation which ought to be accepted by the Church of Rome.... And if any should make dainty to give the Spirit of God to the interpreter, yet he cannot deny it to the Council; and when the vulgar edition shall be approved, and an anathema be thundered against whosoever will not receive it, this will be without error, not by the spirit of him that wrote it, but of the synod that hath received it for such.”³

¹ _Statutes of the Scottish Church_, Volume I., pages 145,
260‒269.

² _Decrees of the Council of Trent_, Session IV.

³ Sarpi, Book I., chapter 2, pages 159, _et seq._; Buckley’s
_History of the Council of Trent_, page 125; Pallavicino,