HISTORY
OF THE
REFORMATION IN EUROPE
IN THE TIME OF CALVIN.

BY

J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE, D.D.

TRANSLATED BY

WILLIAM L. B. CATES,

JOINT AUTHOR OF WOODWARD AND CATES’S ‘ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF CHRONOLOGY,’ EDITOR OF ‘THE DICTIONARY OF GENERAL BIOGRAPHY,’ ETC.

‘Les choses de petite durée ont coutume de devenir fanées, quand elles ont passé leur temps.

‘Au règne de Christ, il n’y a que le nouvel homme qui soit florissant, qui ait de la vigueur, et dont il faille faire cas.’

Calvin.

VOL. VI.
SCOTLAND, SWITZERLAND, GENEVA.

NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
530 BROADWAY
1877.

PREFACE.

The author of the History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century died at Geneva, 21 October, 1872, when only a few chapters remained to be written to complete his great work. Feeling, as he often said, that time was short for him now (he was not far from his eightieth year), and stimulated by the near prospect of the end towards which he had been incessantly straining for fifty years, he worked on with redoubled ardor. ‘I count the minutes,’ he used to say; and he allowed himself no rest. Unhappily the last minutes were refused him, and the work was not finished. But only a small portion is wanting; and the manuscripts of which the publication is continued in the present volume will bring the narration almost to its close.

Ten volumes have appeared. It was the author’s intention to comprise the remainder of his history in two additional volumes. He had sketched his programme on a sheet of paper as follows:—

‘WITH GOD’S HELP.

‘Order of subjects, saving diminution or enlargement, according to the extent of each.

‘Vol. XI. to the death of Luther.

• ‘Scotland down to 1546.
• ‘Denmark.
• ‘Sweden.
• ‘Bohemia and Moravia.
• ‘Poland.
• ‘Hungary.
• ‘Geneva, Switzerland, and Calvin.
• ‘Germany, to death of Luther, 1546.

‘Vol. XII. to the death of Calvin.

• ‘Netherlands, 1566.
• ‘Spain.
• ‘Italy.
• ‘Scotland down to 1560.
• ‘England, to the Articles of 1552.
• ‘Germany, 1556.
• ‘France, 1559.
• ‘Calvin and his work in Geneva and in Christendom to his death, 1564.

• ‘Scotland down to 1546.
• ‘Denmark.
• ‘Sweden.
• ‘Bohemia and Moravia.
• ‘Poland.
• ‘Hungary.
• ‘Geneva, Switzerland, and Calvin.
• ‘Germany, to death of Luther, 1546.

• ‘Netherlands, 1566.
• ‘Spain.
• ‘Italy.
• ‘Scotland down to 1560.
• ‘England, to the Articles of 1552.
• ‘Germany, 1556.
• ‘France, 1559.
• ‘Calvin and his work in Geneva and in Christendom to his death, 1564.

The numerous manuscripts left by M. Merle d’Aubigné include all the articles set out in the programme as intended to form Vol. XI. (VI. of the second series), and three of the articles destined for Vol. XII., the first two and the fifth.

The work will undoubtedly present important gaps. Nevertheless, the great period, the period of origination, will have been described almost completely. But there is one chapter which it is very much to be regretted that he has not written. That is the last, relating to the work and the influence of Calvin in Christendom. The man who for fifty years had lived in close intercourse with Calvin, who had made his writings, his works, and his person the objects of his continual study, and had become impregnated with his spirit more, perhaps, than any one in our age; the man who was the first to hold in his hand, to read without intermission, and to analyze almost all the innumerable pieces that proceeded from the pen of the reformer, would have been able to trace for us with unrivalled authority the grand figure of his hero, and to describe the immense influence which he had on the sixteenth century, in distant regions as well as in his immediate circle. The absence of this concluding chapter, which the author had projected and which he long meditated but still delayed to write, remains an irreparable loss.

The editors (M. le pasteur Adolphe Duchemin, son-in-law of the eminent historian, and M. E. Binder, Professor of Exegesis at the Theological College of Geneva, colleague and friend of M. Merle d’Aubigné) have confined themselves to verifying the numerous quotations scattered through the text, to testing the accuracy of the references given in the notes, and to curtailing here and there developments which the author would assuredly have removed if he had edited the work himself. As the matters proposed to form Vol. XI. are sufficient to form two volumes and even to commence a third, it has been necessary to alter the arrangement indicated above.

The division of the narrative into chapters, and the titles given to the chapters, are for the most part the work of the editors.

Two other volumes are to follow the one now presented to the public.

Geneva April, 1875.

CONTENTS
OF
THE SIXTH VOLUME.

HISTORY

OF THE

REFORMATION IN EUROPE

IN THE TIME OF CALVIN.

BOOK X.

THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND.

CHAPTER I.
PREPARATION OF REFORM.
(From the 2nd Century to the Year 1522.)

History is of various kinds. It may be literary, philosophical, political, or religious; the last entering most deeply into the inmost facts of our being. The political historian will sometimes disclose the hidden mysteries of the cabinets of princes, will fathom their counsels, unveil their intrigues, and snatch their secrets from a Cæsar, a Charles V., a Napoleon, while human nature in its loftiest aspects remains inaccessible to them. The inward power of conscience, which not seldom impels a man to act in a way opposed to the rules of policy and to the requirements of self-interest, the great spiritual evolutions of humanity, the sacrifices of missionaries and of martyrs, are for them covered with a veil. It is the Gospel alone which gives us the key of these mysteries, so that there remain in history, even for the most able investigators, enigmas which appear insoluble. How is it that schemes conceived with indisputable cleverness fail? How is it that enterprises which seem insane succeed? They cannot tell. No matter, they keep on their way, they pass into other regions and leave behind them territories which have not been explored.

This is to be regretted, for the historian ought to embrace in his survey the whole field of human affairs. He must, of course, take into consideration the earthly powers which bear sway in the world, ambition, despotism, liberty; but he ought to mark also the heavenly powers which religion reveals. The living God must not be excluded from the world which He created. Man must not stop in his contemplations at elementary molecules, nor even at political influences, but must raise himself to this first principle, as Clement of Alexandria named it,—this existence, the idea of which is immediate, original, springs from no other, but is necessarily presupposed in all thought.

God, who renews the greenness of our pastures, who makes the corn come forth out of the bosom of the earth, and covers the trees with blossoms and with fruit, does not abandon the souls of men. The God of the whole visible creation is much more the light and the strength of souls, for one of these is more precious in his sight than all the universe. The Creator, who every spring brings forth out of the winter’s ice and cold a nature full of life, smiling with light and adorned with flowers, can assuredly produce, when it pleases Him, a spiritual springtide in the heart of a torpid and frozen humanity. The Divine Spirit is the sap which infuses into barren souls the vivifying juices of heaven. The world has not seldom been like a desert in which all life seemed to be extinct; and yet, in those periods apparently so arid, subterranean currents were yielding sustenance here and there to solitary plants; and at the hour fixed by Divine providence the living water has gushed forth abundantly to reanimate perishing humanity. Such was the case in the two greatest ages of history, that of the Gospel and that of the Reformation.

THE SPIRITUAL SPRINGTIDE.

Such epochs, the most important in human history, are for that reason the worthiest to be studied. The new life which sprang up in the 16th century was everywhere the same, but nevertheless it bore a certain special character in each of the countries in which it appeared; in Germany, in Switzerland, in England, in Scotland, in France, in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Spain, and in other lands. At Wittenberg it was to man that Christian thought especially attached itself, to man fallen, but regenerated and justified by faith. At Geneva it was to God, to His sovereignty and His grace. In Scotland it was to Christ—Christ as expiatory victim, but above all Christ as king, who governs and keeps his people independently of human power.

Scotland is peopled by a vigorous race, vigorous in their virtues and vigorous, we may add, in their faults. Vigor is also one of the distinguishing features of Scottish Christianity, and it is this quality perhaps which led Scotland to attach itself particularly to Christ as to the king of the Church, the idea of power being always involved in the idea of king.

This country is now to be the subject of our narrative. It deserves to be so; for although of small extent and situated on the confines of the West, it has by nature and by faith a motive force which makes itself felt to the ends of the earth.

Two periods are to be noted in the Scottish Reformation, that of Hamilton and that of Knox. It is of the first of these only that we are now to treat. The study of the beginnings of things attracts and interests the mind in the highest degree. Faithful to our plan, we shall ascend to the generative epoch of Caledonian reform, an epoch which Scotland herself has perhaps too much slighted, and we shall exhibit its simple beauty.

Before the days of the Reformation, Scotland received three great impulses in succession from the Christian countries of the south.

The persecutions which at the close of the second century, during the course of the third, and at the beginning of the fourth, fell on the disciples of the Gospel who dwelt in the southern part of Great Britain, drove a great number of them to take refuge in the country of the Scots. These pious men built for themselves humble and solitary hermitages, in green meadows or on steep mountains, and in narrow valleys of the glens; and there, devoting themselves to the service of God, they shed a soft gleam of light in the midst of the fogs of every kind which encompassed them, teaching the ignorant and strengthening the weak. They were called in the Gaelic tongue gille De, servants of God, in Latin cultores Dei; and in these phrases we find the origin of the name by which they are still known—Culdees. Such was the respect which they inspired that, after their death, their cells were often transformed into churches.[1] From them came the first impulse.

THE CULDEES.

Several centuries passed away; the feudal system was established in Scotland. The mountainous nature of the country, which made of every domain a sort of fortress, the fewness of the large towns, the absence of any influential body of citizens, the institution of clans, the limited number of the nobles,—all these circumstances combined to make the power of the feudal lords greater than in any other European country; and this power at a later period protected the Reformation from the despotism of the kings. But the influence of the Culdees, though really perceptible in the Middle Ages, was very feeble. It may be said of the things of grace in Scotland as of the works of Creation, that the sun did not come to scatter the mists which brooded over a nature melancholy and monotonous, and that the influence of the winds which, rushing forth from the neighboring seas, roared and raged over the barren heaths or over the fertile plains of Caledonia, was not softened by the breath divine which comes from heaven.

But in the days of the revival a sweet and subtile sound was heard, and the surface of the lochs seemed to become animated. Wickliffe, having given to England the Word of God, some of his followers, and particularly John Resby, came into Scotland. ‘The pope is nothing,’ said Resby in 1407,[2] and he taught at the same time that Christ is everything. He was burnt at Perth.... Thus it was from the disciples of Wickliffe, the Lollards, that the second impulse came.

The reveillé of Wickliffe was echoed in Eastern Europe by that of John Huss. In 1421, a Bohemian, one Paul Crawar, arriving from Prague, expounded at St. Andrews the Word of God, which he cited with a readiness and accuracy that astonished his hearers.[3] When led away to execution and bound to the stake, the bold Bohemian said to the priests who stood round him, ‘Generation of Satan, you, like your fathers, are enemies of the truth.’ The priests, not relishing such speeches in the presence of the crowd, had a ball of brass put into his mouth,[4] and the martyr thus silenced was burnt alive without any further protest on his part.

However, Patrick Graham, archbishop of St. Andrews and primate of Scotland, nephew of James I., and a man distinguished for his abilities and his virtues, had heard Crawar. If the heart of the priest had been hard as a stone the heart of the archbishop was like a fertile field. The Word of the Lord took deep root in him. He formed the project of reformation of the Church; but the clergy were indignant; the primate was deprived, was condemned to imprisonment for life, and died in prison.

Then began that struggle between royalty and the nobility which was afterwards to become one of the characteristic features of the time of reform. Kings, instigated by ambitious priests, sought to humble the nobles; the latter were thus predisposed to promote the Reformation. James II. (1437–1460) fought against the nobles both with the sword and by severe laws. James III. (1460–1488) removed them with contempt from his Court and gave himself up to unworthy favorites. James IV. (1488–1503), a man of a nobler spirit, esteemed the aristocracy the ornament of his Court and the strength of his kingdom. During the reign of this prince appeared the first glimmerings of the Reformation. Some pious men, dwellers most of them in the districts of Hill and Cunningham, were enlightened by the Gospel, and, confronting the Roman papacy, boldly declared that all true Christians receive every day spiritually the body of Jesus Christ by faith; that the bread remains bread after consecration, and that the natural body of Christ is not present; that there is a universal priesthood, of which every man and woman who believes in the Saviour is a member; that the pope, who exalts himself above God, is against God; that it is not permissible to take up arms for the things of faith; and that priests may marry.

JOHN CAMPBELL, LAIRD OF CESSNOCK.

Among the protectors of these brave folk was John Campbell, laird of Cessnock, a man well grounded in the evangelical doctrine, modest even to timidity, but abounding in works of mercy, and who received with goodwill not only the Lollards but those even whose opinions were opposed to his own. His partner, with a character of greater decision than his own, was a woman well versed in the Bible, and being thoroughly acquainted with the Scriptures was safe against intimidation. Every morning the family and the servants assembled in a room of the mansion, and a priest, the chaplain, opened in the midst of them a New Testament, a very rare book at that period, and read and explained it.[5] When this family worship and the first meal were over, the Campbells would visit the poor and the sick. At the dinner hour they called together some of their neighbors: monks as well as gentlefolk would come and sit at their table. One day the conversation turning on the conventual life and the habits of the priests, Campbell spoke on the subject with moderation but also with freedom. The monks, exasperated, put crafty questions to him, provoked him, and succeeded in drawing from him words which in their eyes were heretical. Forgetting the claims of hospitality they hastened to the house of the bishop and denounced their host and the lady of the house. Inquiry was set on foot; the crime of heresy was proved. Campbell saw the danger which threatened him and appealed to the king.

James IV., who had married Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., was then reigning in Scotland. His life had not been spotless: he was often tormented with remorse, and in his fits of melancholy he resolved to make up for his sins by applying himself to the administration of justice. He had the two parties appear before him; the monks cited decisions of the Church sufficient to condemn the prisoner. The weak and simple-minded Campbell was somewhat embarrassed;[6] his answers were timid and inadequate. He could talk with widows and orphans, but he could not cope with these monks. But his wife was full of decision and courage. When requested by the king to speak, she took up one by one the accusations of the monks, and setting them face to face with the Holy Scriptures, showed their falsehood. Her speech was clear, serious, and weighty with conviction. The king, persuaded by her eloquence, declared to the monks that if they should again persecute honest people in that way, they should be severely punished. And then, touched by the piety of this eminent woman and wishing to give her a token of his respect, he rose from his seat, went up to her and embraced her.[7] Turning to her husband, ‘As for you,’ said he, ‘I give you in fee such and such villages, and I intend them to be testimonies for ever of my good will towards you.’ The husband and wife withdrew full of joy, and the monks full of vexation and shame. Thirty other evangelicals, professing the same doctrines as the laird of Cessnock, were cited, but they were dismissed with the request to be satisfied with the faith of the Church. This took place about the year 1512, the year in which Zwingle began to search the Scriptures and in which Luther on Pilate’s Staircase at Rome heard that word which went on resounding in his heart, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ The brave Scotchwoman had fought a battle at an outpost and sounded the prelude to the Reformation.

ELECTION OF A BISHOP IN SCOTLAND.

Unhappily the accession of Henry VIII. to the throne of England turned the thoughts of the King of Scotland in another direction. Henry VII., as long as he lived, had striven to keep on good terms with his son-in-law; but Henry VIII., a monarch haughty, sensitive, and impatient, and who in mere wilfulness would quarrel with his neighbors, was far less friendly with his sister’s husband. He even delayed for a long time the payment of the legacy which her father had left her. The frequent attacks of the English, and the necessity thereby imposed on the Scots of constantly keeping watch on the borders, had given rise to distrust and hatred between the two nations. At the same time the ancient rivalry of France and England had thrown Scotland on the side of the French. When the English eagle pounced on unguarded France, ‘the weasel Scot’ came sliding into its nest and devoured the royal brood.[8] Henry VIII. revived those ancient traditions; and France took advantage of them to enfeoff Scotland still further to herself at the very moment when the Medici and the Guises were on the point of seizing at Paris the reins of government. Insulted by Henry VIII., James IV. resolved, in spite of the wise remonstrance of the old earl of Angus, to attack England. Scotland gave him the élite of her people. He fought at Flodden with intrepid courage, but hit by two arrows and struck by a battle-axe he fell on the field, while round him lay the corpses of twelve earls, thirteen lords, two bishops, two mitred abbots, a great number of gentlemen, and more than ten thousand soldiers. Several students, and among them one named Andrew Duncan, son of the laird of Airdrie, whom we shall meet again, were either killed or made prisoners on that fatal day.

The king’s son, James V. (afterwards father of Mary Stuart), was scarcely two years old at the time of his father’s death. His mother, sister of Henry VIII., assumed the regency, and during his minority the nobles exercised an influence which was to be one day favorable to liberty, and thereby to the Gospel. The king and the priests, both driving at absolute power, the former in the State, the latter in the Church, now made common cause against the nobles. Strange conflicts then took place between the various powers of Scotland. One of these conflicts had just disturbed the first city of the kingdom, St. Andrews, and had mingled with the noise of the stormy sea, which roared at the foot of the rocks, the voices of priests struggling around the Cathedral, the cries of soldiers and the reverberations of cannon. Alexander Stuart, archbishop of St. Andrews, primate of Scotland, having fallen on the field of Flodden, three competitors appeared for the possession of his primatial see. These were John Hepburn, prior of St. Andrews, the candidate of the canons; Gavin Douglas, brother of the earl of Angus, candidate of the nobles; and Andrew Forman, bishop of Murray, candidate of the pope. Douglas had already been put by the queen in possession of the castle of St. Andrews; but Hepburn, an ambitious man of high spirit, with the aid of the canons, took it by assault, fortified himself in it,[9] and then set out for Rome to secure the pontifical investiture. Forman, the pope’s candidate, taking advantage of his rival’s absence, seized the castle and the monastery, and placed there a strong garrison. Hepburn was pacified by the gift of a pension of 3,000 crowns; while Douglas, candidate of the nobles, finding that there was neither money nor mitre for him, cannonaded and captured the cathedral of Dunkeld.[10] In such fashion was the election of a bishop made in Scotland before the Reformation.

The elections of priests were conducted after somewhat different methods. The lesser benefices were put up to auction and sold by wandering bards, diceplayers, or minions of the Court. The bishops, who gave their illegitimate daughters to the nobles, kept the best places in the Church for their bastards. These young worldlings, hurrying off to their pleasures, abandoned their flocks to monks, who retailed in the pulpit absurd legends of their saint, of his combats with the devil and of his flagellations, or amused the people with low jesting. This system, which passing for a representation of Christianity was merely its parody, destroyed not only Christian piety and morality, but the peace of families, the freedom of the people, and the prosperity of the kingdom.[11]

While ambition, idleness and licentiousness thus prevailed among the clergy, God was preparing ‘new vessels’ into which to pour the new wine which the old vessels could no longer hold. Some simple-minded men were on the point of achieving by their Christian faith and life a victory over the rich, powerful, and worldly pontiffs. Three young men, born almost with the century, were just beginning a career, the struggles and trials of which were as yet unknown to them. These men were to become the reformers of the Church of Scotland.

BIRTH OF ALESIUS.

On April 23, 1500, the wife of an honest citizen of Edinburgh gave birth to a son who was afterwards called by some Alane, and by others Ales, but who signed his own name Alesius, the form which we shall adopt. Alexander—that was his baptismal name—was a child remarkable for liveliness, and the anxiety of his devoted parents lest any accident should befall him led them to hang round his neck, as a safeguard against every danger, a paper on which a priest had written some verses of St. John. Alesius was fond of going, with other boys of his own age, to the heights which environ Edinburgh. The great rock on the summit of which the castle stands, the beautiful Calton Hill, and the picturesque hill called Arthur’s Seat, in turn attracted them. One day—it was in 1512—Alexander and some friends, having betaken themselves to the last-named hill, amused themselves by rolling over and over down a slope which terminated in a precipice. Suddenly the lad found himself on the brink: terror deprived him of his senses: some hand grasped him and placed him in safety, but he never knew by whom or by what he had been saved. The priests gave the credit of this escape to the paper with which they had provided him, but Alexander himself attributed it to God and his father’s prayers. ‘Ah!’ said he, many years afterwards, ‘I never recall that event without a great shudder through my whole body.’[12] Some time after he was sent to the University of St. Andrews to complete his education.

Another young boy, of more illustrious birth, gave promise of an eminent manhood; he belonged to the Hamilton family which, under James III., had taken the highest position in Scotland. Born in the county of Linlithgow, westward of Edinburgh, and somewhat younger than Alesius, he was to inaugurate the Reformation. Linlithgow was at that time the Versailles of the kingdom, and could boast of a more ancient origin than the palace of Louis XIV. Its projecting porticoes, its carvings in wood, its wainscot panelings, its massive balustrades, its roofs over-hanging the street, produced the most picturesque effect. The castle was at once palace, fortress, and prison; it was the pleasure-house to which the Court used to retire for relaxation, and within its walls Mary Stuart was born.

PATRICK HAMILTON.

Near Linlithgow was the barony of Kincavil, which had been given by James IV., in 1498, to Sir Patrick Hamilton. Catherine Stuart, the wife of the latter, was daughter of the duke of Albany, son of King James II. Sir Patrick, on his side, was second son of Lord Hamilton, and, according to trustworthy charters, of the princess Mary, countess of Arran, also a daughter of James II.[13] Sir Patrick had two sons and one daughter, James, Patrick, and Catherine.

Patrick, the young man of whom we speak, was therefore of the blood royal, both by the father’s and the mother’s side. He was born probably at the manor of Kincavil, and was there brought up. He grew up surrounded with all the sweetnesses of a mother’s love, and from his childhood the image of his mother was deeply engraven on his heart. This tender mother, who afterwards engaged his latest thoughts on the scaffold, observed with delight in her son a craving for superior culture, a passion for science, a taste for the literature of Greece and Rome, and above all, lively aspirations after all that is elevated, and movements of the soul towards God.

As for his father, Sir Patrick, he had the reputation of being the first knight of Scotland, and as cousin-german of King James IV. he had frequent occasions for displaying his courage. One day a German knight arriving in Scotland to challenge her lords and barons, Sir Patrick encountered and overthrew him. At the marriage of Margaret of England with the King of Scotland, it was once more Sir Patrick who most distinguished himself at the tournament. And at a later time, when sent ambassador to Paris with an elder brother, the earl of Arran, he won fresh honors in London on his way.[14] People were fond of recounting these exploits to his two boys, James and Patrick, and nothing appeared to them more magnificent than the glittering armor of their father hung upon the walls of the banqueting hall. Ambition awoke in the heart of the younger of the sons; but he was destined to seek after another glory, holier and more enduring.

The Hamiltons having many relations at Paris, Sir Patrick determined to send thither his second son, and at the age of fourteen the lad set out for that celebrated capital.[15] His father, who destined him for the great offices of the Church, had already procured for him the title and the revenues of abbot of Ferne, in the county of Ross, and from that source the expenses of the young man’s journey and course of studies were to be defrayed. It was the moment at which the fire of the Reformation, which was just kindled on the Continent, began to throw out sparks on all sides. One of these sparks was to light on the soul of Patrick. But if Hamilton were destined to bring from Paris to Scotland the first stone of the building, another Scotchman, one year younger than he, was destined to bring the top-stone from Geneva.

BIRTH OF JOHN KNOX.

In one of the suburbs of Haddington, near Edinburgh, called Gifford-gate, dwelt an honorable citizen, member of an ancient family of Renfrewshire, named Knox, who had borne arms, like his father and his grandfather, under the earl of Bothwell. Some members of this family had died under the colors.[16] In 1505 Knox had a son who was named John. The blood of warriors ran in the veins of the man who was to become one of the most intrepid champions of Christ’s army. John, after studying first at Haddington school, was sent at the age of sixteen to Glasgow University.[17] He was active, bold, thoroughly upright and perfectly honest, diligent in his duties, and full of heartiness for his comrades. But he had in him also a firmness which came near to obstinacy, an independence which was very much like pride, a melancholy which bordered on prostration, a sternness which some took for insensibility, and a passionate force sometimes mistakenly attributed to a vindictive temper. An important place was reserved for him in the history of his country and of Christendom.

While God was thus preparing these young contemporaries, Alesius, Hamilton, and Knox, and others besides, to diffuse in Scotland the light of the Gospel, ambitious nobles were engaged in conflict around the throne of the king. The old earl of Angus, who had lost his two sons at the battle of Flodden, and had not long survived them, had left a grandson, a handsome young man, not very wise nor experienced, but with plenty of ambition, cleverness, liveliness, and courage. The widow of James IV., regent of the kingdom, married this youth, and by this rash step displeased the nobles. In the fierce encounters which took place between the Angus and Douglas parties on one side, and the Hamiltons on the other, pillage, murder, and arson were not seldom perpetrated. Another regency became necessary. John Stuart, duke of Albany, who was born in France of a French mother, and was residing at the court of Saint-Germain, but was the nearest relation of the King of Scotland, was summoned. He banished Angus, who withdrew with the queen to England. But Albany had soon to return to France, and Queen Margaret and her husband went back to Edinburgh.

The old rivalries were not slow to reappear. When the parliament assembled at Edinburgh in April 1520, the Hamiltons gathered in great numbers in the palace of the primate Beatoun. The primate ran hither and thither, armed from head to foot, brandishing the torch of discord.[18] The bishop of Dunkeld entreated him to prevent a collision. When the primate, laying his hand on his heart, said: ‘On my conscience I am not able to prevent it,’ the sound of his coat mail was heard. ‘Ah, my lord,’ exclaimed Dunkeld, ‘that noise tells me that your conscience is not good.’ Sir Patrick Hamilton, the father of the reformer, counselled peace; but Sir James Hamilton, a natural son of the earl of Arran, a violent and cruel young man, cried out to him: ‘You are afraid to fight for your friend.’ ‘Thou liest, impudent bastard;’ retorted the haughty baron; ‘I will fight to-day in a place in which thou wilt not dare to set thy foot.’ The speaker immediately quitted the palace, and all the Hamiltons followed him.

The earl of Angus then occupied the High Street, and his men, drawn up behind barricades, vigorously repulsed their adversaries with their pikes. Sir Patrick, with the most intrepid of his followers, cleared the entrenchments, threw himself into the High Street, and striking out vigorously all round him with his sword, fell mortally wounded, while the rash young man who had insulted him fled at full speed.

PATRICK HAMILTON IN FRANCE.

His son Patrick was no longer present in the manor-house of Kincavil, to mingle his tears with those of his mother. Escaping from the gloomy atmosphere of Caledonia, he had gone to enjoy in Paris the splendid light of civilization, almost at the same time at which the famous George Buchanan arrived there. ‘All hail!’ exclaimed these young Scotchmen, as they landed in France; ‘all hail! oh, happy Gaul! kind nurse of letters! Thou whose atmosphere is so healthful, whose soil is so fertile, whose bountiful hospitality welcomes all the universe, and who givest to the world in return the riches of thy spirit; thou whose language is so elegant, thou who art the common country of all peoples, who worshippest God in truth and without debasing thyself in outward observances! Oh! shall I not love thee as a son? shall I not honor thee all my life? All hail, oh, happy Gaul!’[19]

It is probable that Hamilton entered the Collège de Montaigu, the same to which Calvin was admitted four or five years later. At the time of Hamilton’s arrival Mayor (Major), who soon after removed to St. Andrews, was teacher of philosophy there.

To a strong dislike of the writings of the sophists Hamilton joined a great love for those of the true philosophers. But presently a light more pure than that of Plato and Aristotle shone in his eyes. As early as 1520 the writings of Luther were read with eager interest by the students of the schools of Paris; some of whom took part with, others against the Reformation. Hamilton was listening to these disputations and reading the books which came from Germany, when suddenly he learnt the tragical death of Sir Patrick. He was profoundly affected by the tidings, and began to seek God with yet more ardor than before. He was one more example of the well-known fact, that at the very moment when all the sorrows of the earthly life overwhelm the soul, God gives to it the heavenly life. Two great events—the death of Sir Patrick, and the beginning of the Reformation in Paris—occurring simultaneously—occasioned in the soul of the young Scotchman a collision by which a divine spark was struck out. The fire once kindled in his heart, nothing could thenceforth extinguish it.

Hamilton took the degree of Master of Arts about the close of 1520, as still appears in the registers of the University. He may possibly have visited Louvain, where Erasmus then dwelt; he returned to Scotland probably in 1522.

CHAPTER II.
THE MOVEMENT OF REFORM BEGINS.
(1522 to April 1527.)

The Reformation seems to have begun in Scotland with the profession of those principles, Catholic but antipapal, which had been maintained a century earlier at the Council of Constance. There were doctors present there who set out from the thought that from the age of the Apostles there always had been, and that there always will be, a church one and universal, capable of remedying by its own action all abuses in its forms of worship, dissensions among its members, the hypocrisy of its priests, and the despotic assumptions of the first of its pontiffs. John Mayor had been recently called to Glasgow University. Among his audience there John Knox distinguished himself by his passion for study; and not far from him was another young Scotchman, of a less serious turn, Buchanan. ‘The church universal,’—so were they taught by the disciple of d’Ailly and of Gerson—‘when assembled in council, is above the pope, and may rebuke, judge, and even depose him. The Roman excommunications have no force at all if they are not conformed to justice. The ambition, the avarice, the worldly luxury of the Roman court and of the bishops are to be sharply censured.’ On another occasion, the professor, passing from theology to politics, avowed doctrines far in advance of his age. He taught that a people, in its entirety, is above the monarch; that the power of the king is derived from the people, and that if a prince acts in opposition to the interests of his subjects, the latter have the right to dethrone him. Mayor went further still, even to the blameworthy extreme of asserting that in certain cases the king might be put to death.[20] These political principles, professed by one who occupied a Roman Catholic chair, thoroughly scholastic and superstitious, must have influenced the convictions of Buchanan, who afterwards, in his dialogue De Jure Regni apud Scotos, professed opinions which were energetically controverted, even by Protestants. ‘In the beginning,’ said he, ‘we created legitimate kings, and we established laws binding equally on them and on ourselves.’[21] These political heresies of the sixteenth century are the truths of our days. The principles of Mayor were certainly not received without exception by Knox, but they had probably something to do with the firmness with which he maintained the rights of the Word of God in the presence of Mary Stuart. For the moment, Knox, disgusted with the barren theology of his master—a stanch scholastic on many points—forsook the wilderness of the schools and applied himself to the quest of the living fountains of the Word of God. In 1523 Mayor removed from Glasgow to St. Andrews.

PATRICK HAMILTON AT ST. ANDREWS.

It was to St. Andrews that Patrick Hamilton betook himself on his return from the Continent, after a visit to the bereaved family of Kincavil. He was admitted on June 9 of the same year into the University of the metropolitan city, and on October 3 of the following year he was received member of the faculty of letters. St. Andrews had powerful attractions for him. No other university in the kingdom had on its staff so many enlightened men; and the college of St. Leonard’s, which he entered, was the one whose teaching had the most liberal tendencies. The studies which he had pursued, the knowledge which he had acquired, and the rank which he held, gave him distinction among his fellow-disciples. Buchanan, a severe judge, looked on him as a ‘young man of great intellect and of astonishing learning.’[22] Hamilton held the hypocrisy of the monks in such abomination that he never would adopt either their dress or their way of life; and although he was abbot of Ferne he never took up his residence in his monastery. Skilled in the musical art, he composed a chant in parts, which was performed in the cathedral, and delighted the hearers. He did more: he dreamed, as all reformers do at the outset of their career, of the transformation of the Catholic Church; he resolved to seek the imposition of hands, ‘in order,’ says Fryth, ‘that he might preach the pure Word of God.’ Hamilton did not, to be sure, preach at that time with the boldness and the power of a Luther or a Farel. He loved the weak; he felt himself weak; and being full of lowly-mindedness, he was content to impart faithfully the truth which he had received.

About a year after the combat in which Sir Patrick was killed, the duke of Albany returned, with the intention of bringing about an intimate alliance between Scotland and France. Margaret Tudor, who wished for an alliance with England, and who found herself deprived of power by the arrival of Albany, wrote on September 13, 1523, to her brother Henry VIII.: ‘The person and the kingdom of my son are exposed to very great danger; come to our aid, come in all haste, or it is all over with my son!’[23] It might perhaps have been all over with the Reformation too—a far more important matter. But Albany, although he was at the head of a fine army, fled on two occasions before the English, and being despised by everybody, quitted Scotland forever at the close of May 1524.[24]

WRITINGS OF LUTHER PROSCRIBED.

He had only just set sail when the cause of the Reformation, threatened by his presence, received a powerful reinforcement. In 1524, and at the beginning of 1525, some books of Luther and of other Reformers were brought into Scotland by merchant-ships, and getting dispersed over the country, produced there the same effect as they had in France and in Italy. Gawin Dunbar, the old bishop of Aberdeen, was the first to become aware of this. He discovered one day a volume of Luther in his own town. He was in consternation when he saw that the fiery darts hurled by the hand of the heretic were crossing the sea. As like discoveries were made in Linlithgow, St. Andrews, and other places, the affair was brought before Parliament. ‘Damnable heresies are spread abroad in various countries,’ said the partisans of Rome. ‘This kingdom of Scotland, its sovereigns and their subjects, have always stood fast in the holy faith since they received it in the primitive age; attempts are being made at this moment to turn them away from it. Let us take all needful steps to repulse the attack.’ Consequently, on July 17, 1525, parliament enacted that no person arriving in any part of the kingdom should introduce any book of Luther or of his disciples, or should publish the opinions of that German except for the purpose of refuting them, ‘Scotland having always bene clene of all filth and vice.’[25]

This act was immediately published throughout the country, and particularly at all ports, in order that no one might be able to pretend ignorance of it. About four days after the closing of parliament the sheriffs received orders from the king’s council to set on foot without delay the necessary inquiries for the discovery of persons who might possess any books of Luther, or who should profess his errors. ‘You will confiscate their books,’ the order ran, ‘and transmit them to us.’ The Reformation, which till that time had been almost unknown in those regions, became suddenly a public fact, proclaimed by the highest body in the realm, and was on the point of preoccupying all minds. The enemies of the truth were preparing its triumph.

However, the question was whether the young king would lean towards the side of Rome or the side of the Gospel. James V., in whose name the decree against the Reformation had been issued, had in reality nothing at all to do with it. Amiable and generous, but a weakling and lover of pleasure, he was so backward in his learning that for want of knowing English he could not read the letters of his uncle Henry VIII.[26] He was a child under tutelage; he spoke to no one except in the presence of some member of the council, and Angus took care to foster in him the taste for pleasure in order to turn away his attention from public affairs. That taste was moreover quite natural to the young prince. His life was devoted to games, to arms, to the chase; he made request to Henry VIII. to send him swords and bucklers, the armor made in London being far more beautiful than that of Edinburgh. He sacrificed business to pleasure all the more readily because those who were about him were living in a state of entire disunion. The three chief personages of the realm, archbishop Beatoun, head of the priests, Angus, leader of the nobles, and the queen-mother who intrigued with both parties, were at open war.[27] Margaret desired both to get a divorce from Angus and to avenge herself on the archbishop who thwarted her in her projects.[28] In the midst of all these ambitious ones the young king was like a prey over which the vultures fight.

In May 1525, James having reached his fourteenth year, had been declared of age, in conformity with the law of Scotland. It had been a mere matter of form. Angus, supported by the most powerful of the nobles and by the parliament, verified the fears of the queen; he gave all places to the Douglases, and taking the Great Seal from archbishop Beatoun, kept it himself. The queen-mother indignantly entreated her very dear brother to secure the intervention of the pope on behalf of her son.[29] All was useless: the authority of the bold and ambitious Angus remained unimpaired.

JAMES V. AND THE PRIESTS.

The young prince, then, wearied with the yoke, threw himself, after the tradition of his fathers, into the arms of the priests, and in order to escape the aristocracy submitted himself to the clergy. This was a grievous prognostic for Reform. At the end of the summer of 1526, the queen, archbishop Beatoun, and other members of the priestly and royal party, assembled at Stirling Castle, and a plan was there considered and determined on which was to take away the chief power from the nobles and give it to the bishops. John Stuart, earl of Lennox, a friend of James V., set out from that fortress on September 4, at the head of from ten to twelve thousand men, and marched on Edinburgh. But Angus was already informed of what was in preparation, and Arran, who had made his peace with him, was ready. The same day, in the morning, the trumpet sounded in the capital, and the chief of the Douglases set forth at the head of his army, dragging after him the young monarch. The latter was in hope that the hour of his deliverance was come: he advanced slowly in the rear of the army, in spite of the brutal threats of Sir G. Douglas, his guardian. Presently the report of cannons was heard: the king stopped. George Douglas, fancying that he would attempt to escape, cried out, ‘Don’t think of running away, for if our enemies had hold of you on one side and we on the other, we would pull you in two rather than let you go.’ The King never forgot that word. Angus won the day. Lennox had been killed by the savage James Hamilton, and the father of the latter, when he heard it, had thrown his scarlet cloak over the body of Lennox, exclaiming: ‘Here lies a man, the boldest, the mightiest, and the wisest that Scotland ever possessed!’ At the tidings of this great disaster all was confusion in Stirling Castle. The queen fled in disguise and concealed herself: archbishop Beatoun put off his pontifical robes, took the dress of a shepherd, and went into retirement among the herdsmen of the Fifeshire hills, where for nearly three months he kept a flock, no one the while suspecting that he was the lord chancellor of the realm. Thus the anticipated triumph of the primate and the priests, which would have been fatal to the Reformation, was changed into a total rout, and greater religious freedom was given to Scotland.[30]

But this was not enough. The reform of the Church by the Church itself would not suffice; nor would reform by the writings of the reformers; there was need of a mightier principle,—the Word of God. This Word does not merely communicate a bare knowledge; it works a transformation in the will and in the life of man, and as soon as such a change is accomplished in two or three individuals in any place whatsoever, there exists a church. The increased liberty enjoyed in Scotland after the flight of the primate favored the introduction of this mighty Word, to which it was reserved to effect the complete enfranchisement of the nation.

TYNDALE’S NEW TESTAMENTS IMPORTED.

Early in the summer, merchants of Leith, Dundee, St. Andrews, Montrose, and Aberdeen, sent out their ships laden with the productions of Scotland to the ports of the Netherlands, Middelburg, Antwerp, and other towns, there to procure commodities for which there was a demand among the Scotch. At that time there was no prohibition against the introduction of the New Testament into Scotland: only the books of Luther and other reformers were proscribed. These good Scottish seamen took advantage of this; and one day Hacket, who had received orders from Henry VIII. to burn all the Testaments translated by Tyndale (and this ‘for the preservation of the Christian faith’), learnt at Berg-op-Zoom, where he then was, that the Scottish traders had put on board many copies of the Gospels as they were on the point of setting sail for Edinburgh and St. Andrews. He started with all speed for the ports which had been named to him: ‘I will seize those books,’ said he, ‘even though they be already on board the ships, and I will make a good fire of them.’[31] He got there: but alas! no more Scottish vessels; they had sailed one day before his arrival. ‘Fortune,’ said he, ‘did not allow me to get there in time; ah, well, have patience.’ And he gave good instructions on the matter to M. de Bever, admiral of Flanders, and to Mr. Moffit, conservator of the Scottish nation in that country.[32]

It was during the time that archbishop Beatoun, arch-foe of the Reformation, was feeding his sheep on the Fifeshire hills in September, October, and November 1526, that the New Testaments arrived and were distributed in the towns and neighboring districts. Scotland and England received the Holy Scriptures from the same country and almost at the same time. The citizens of Edinburgh and the canons of St. Andrews were reading that astonishing book as well as the citizens of London and the canons of Oxford. There were monks who declared that it was a bad book ‘recently invented by Martin Luther,’ but the reading of it was not forbidden. At St. Andrews especially these sacred writings soon shed the evangelical light over the souls of men.[33]

PATRICK HAMILTON’S PREACHING.

There was in that town a young man who was already acquainted with the great facts of salvation announced in this book, and who was well qualified to circulate and explain it. Patrick Hamilton, gifted with keen intelligence and a Christian heart, knew how to set forth in a concise and natural manner the truths of which he was convinced. He knew that there is in the Scriptures a wisdom superior to the human understanding, and that in order to comprehend them there is need of the illumination of the Holy Spirit. He believed that with the written it is necessary to combine oral teaching; and that as Testaments were come from the Netherlands, Scotland needed the spoken word which should call restless and degenerate souls to seek in them the living water which springs up unto life eternal. God was then preparing His witnesses in Scotland, and the first was Patrick Hamilton. He laid open the New Testament; he set forth the facts and the doctrines contained in it; he defended the evangelical principles. His father, the foremost of Scottish knights, had not broken so many lances in the tournament as Patrick now broke in his college, at the university, with the canons, and with all who set themselves against the truth.[34] At the beginning of Lent 1527, he publicly preached in the cathedral and elsewhere the doctrines (heresies, said his sentence) taught by Martin Luther.[35] We have no further particulars of his preaching; but these are sufficient to show us that at this period the people who gathered together in the ancient churches of Scotland heard this faithful minister announce that ‘it is not the law, that terrible tyrant, as Luther said, that is to reign in the conscience, but the Son of God, the king of justice and of peace, who, like a fruitful rain, descends from heaven and fertilizes the most barren soil.’[36]

Circumstances were by no means favorable to the Reformation. Archbishop Beatoun had soon thrown off his shepherd’s dress and left the flocks which he was feeding in the solitary pastures of Bogrian in Fifeshire. The simple, rude, and isolated life of the keeper of sheep was a sufficiently severe chastisement for an ambitious, intriguing, and worldly spirit: day and night, therefore, he was looking for some means of deliverance. Although he was then sleeping on the ground, he had plenty of gold and great estates: this wealth, the omnipotence of which he knew well, would suffice, said he to himself, to ransom him from the abject service to which a political reverse had reduced him. Since the victory of Linlithgow, Angus had exercised the royal power without opposition. It was needful then that Beatoun should gain over that terrible conqueror. The queen-mother, who had also fled at first, having ventured two months later to approach Edinburgh, her son had received her and conducted her to Holyrood palace. This encouraged the archbishop. His nephew, David Beatoun, abbot of Arbroath, was as clever and as ambitious as his uncle, but he hated still more passionately all who refused to submit to the Roman Church. The archbishop entreated him to negotiate his return; the party of the nobles was hard to win; but the abbot, having gained over the provost of Edinburgh, Sir Archibald Douglas, uncle of Angus, the bargain was struck. The archbishop was to pay two thousand Scottish marks to Angus, one thousand to George Douglas, the king’s gaoler, one thousand to cruel James Hamilton, the assassin of Lennox, and to make a present of the abbey of Kilwinning to the earl of Arran. Beatoun, charmed, threw away his crook, started for Edinburgh, and resumed his episcopal functions at St. Andrews.

HAMILTON DECLARED A HERETIC.

It was some time after the return of Beatoun that the king’s cousin began to preach at St. Andrews the glad tidings of free salvation through faith in Christ. Such doctrines could not be taught without giving rise to agitation. The clergy took alarm, some priests and monks went to the castle and prayed the archbishop to chastise the young preacher. Beatoun ordered an inquiry: it was carried out very precisely. The persons with whom Hamilton had engaged in discussion were heard, and some of his hearers gave evidence as to the matter of his discourses. He was declared a heretic. Beatoun was not cruel; he would perhaps have been content with seeking to bring back by fatherly exhortations the young and interesting Hamilton into the paths of the Church. But the primate had by his side some fanatical spirits, especially his nephew David, and they redoubled their urgency to such a degree that the archbishop ordered Hamilton to appear before him to give an account of his faith.[37]

The inquiry could not be made without this noble Christian hearing of it. He perceived the fate that awaited him; his friends perceived it too. If he should appear before the archbishop, it was all up with him. Everyone was moved with compassion; some of his enemies even, touched by his youth, the loveliness of his character, and his illustrious birth, wished to see him escape death. There was no time to lose, for the order of the archiepiscopal court was already signed; several conjured him to fly. What should he do? All his desire was to show to others the peace that filled his own soul; but at the same time he knew how much was still wanting to him. Who could better enlighten and strengthen him than the reformers of Germany? Who more able to put him in a position to return afterwards to preach Christ with power? He resolved to go. Two of his friends, Hamilton of Linlithgow and Gilbert Wynram of Edinburgh, determined to accompany him. Preparations for their departure were made with the greatest possible secrecy. Hamilton took with him one servant, and the three young Scotchmen, finding their way furtively to the coast, embarked on board a merchant-ship. It was in the latter half of the month of April 1527. This unlooked-for escape greatly provoked those who had set their minds on taking the life of the evangelist. ‘He, of evil mind, as may be presumed, passed forth of the realm,’[38] said the archbishop’s familiars. No: his intention was to be instructed, to increase in spiritual life from day to day. He landed at the beginning of May in one of the ports of the Netherlands.

CHAPTER III.

HAMILTON PREPARES HIMSELF IN GERMANY FOR THE REFORMATION OF SCOTLAND.

(Spring, Summer, Autumn, 1527.)

At the time of Hamilton’s arrival on the Continent, the germ of the Reformation of Scotland already lay in his heart. His association with the doctors of Germany would prove the identity of this great spiritual movement, which everywhere was overthrowing the same abuses, and bringing anew to the surface the same truths. In which direction should the young Christian hero of Scotland now turn his footsteps? All his ambition was to go to Wittenberg, to hear Luther, Melanchthon, and the other reformers; but circumstances led him to go first to Marburg. This town lay on his way, and a renowned printer, Hans Luft, was then publishing there the works of Tyndale. In fact, on May 8, 1527, at the moment of Patrick’s arrival on the Continent, there appeared at Marburg the Parable of the Wicked Mammon; and seven months later, December 11, Luft published The Veritable Obedience of a Christian Man. But Hamilton flattered himself that he should find at Marburg something more than Tyndale’s writings—Tyndale himself. English evangelical works had at that time to get printed in Germany, and, as far as possible, under the eye of the author. The young Scotchman had hopes then of meeting at Marburg the translator of the New Testament, the reformer of England, and even Fryth, who might be with him. One reason more positive still influenced Hamilton. He was aware that Lambert d’Avignon, the one man of all the reformers whose views most nearly approached those which prevailed afterwards in Scotland, had been called to Marburg by the landgrave. Philip of Hesse himself was the most determined, the most courageous of all the Protestant princes. How many motives were there inclining him to stay in that town! An extraordinary circumstance decided the young Scotchman. The landgrave, defender of piety and of letters,[39] was about to found there the first evangelical university, ‘for the restoration of the liberal sciences.’[40] Its inauguration was fixed to take place on May 30. Hamilton and his friends might arrive in time. They bent their course towards Hesse, and reached the banks of the Lahn.

UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG.

At the time of their arrival the little town was full of unaccustomed movement. Undiverted by this stir, Hamilton hastened to find out the Frenchman whose name had been mentioned to him and other learned men who were likely also to be at Marburg. He found the sprightly, pious, and resolute Lambert, an opponent, like the landgrave, of half-measures, and a man determined to take action in such wise that the Reformation should not be checked halfway. The young abbot of the North and the aged monk of the South thus met, understood each other, and soon lived together in great familiarity.[41] Lambert said to him that the hidden things had been revealed by Jesus Christ; that what distinguishes our religion from all others is the fact that God has spoken to us; that the Scriptures are sufficient to make us perfect. He did not philosophize much, persuaded that by dint of philosophizing one swerves from the truth. He set aside with equal energy the superstition which invents a marvellous mythology, and the incredulity which denies divine and supernatural action. ‘Everything which has been perverted [déformé] must be reformed [réformé],’ said Lambert, ‘and all reform which proceeds otherwise than according to the Word of God, is nothing.[42] All the inventions of human reason are, in the matter of religion, nothing but trifling and rubbish.’

The commotion which then prevailed amongst the population of Marburg was occasioned by the approaching inauguration of the university founded by the landgrave. On May 30 the chancellor presided at that ceremony. No school of learning had ever been founded on such a basis; one must suppose that the union which ought to exist between science and faith was in this case unrecognized. There is nothing in Hamilton’s writings to show that in this matter he shared the opinions of Lambert. With great evangelical simplicity as to the faith, the Scotchman had rather, in his manner of setting it forth, a metaphysical, speculative tendency, which is a marked feature of the Scottish mind. The principles which were to characterize the new university were these: ‘The Holy Scriptures,’ says a document of Marburg which has been preserved, ‘ought to be purely and piously interpreted, and no one who fails to do so is to teach in the school. From the science of law must be cut off everything which is either unchristian or impious.[43] It is not mere scholars who are to be appointed in the faculties of law, of medicine, of the sciences, and of letters, but men who shall combine with science the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and piety.’

SCIENCE AND FAITH.

Thus we see that the opposition between science and faith was already attracting attention, and the landgrave settled the question by excluding science and those learned in it, since they were not in agreement with the Scriptures; just as in other ages men would have theology and theologians set aside, since they were not in agreement with human learning. No one ought to teach in the schools of theology except in conformity with the Scriptures of God, the supreme authority in the Church. To disregard this principle is to take in hand to destroy the flock of God. The fanaticism of the School, however, cannot justify the fanaticism of the Church. It is a grave matter to banish science on account of the dangers to which it exposes us. To exclude the fire from the hearth for fear of conflagration would not be reasonable; far better to take the precautions which good sense points out for preventing the evil. If science and faith are to advance together without peril, it can only be brought about by the intervention of the moral principle. The existence of so-called freethinkers arises from a moral decay; certain excesses of an exaggerated orthodoxy may perhaps proceed from the same cause. A presumptuous and passionate haste, affirming and denying to the first comer, is a grave fault. How many times has it happened that some law, some fact proclaimed by science at one period as sufficient to convict the Scriptures of error, has had to be given up soon after by science herself as a mistake. But let religious men be on their guard against the indolence and the cowardice which would lead them to repulse science, out of fear lest she should remain mistress of the field of battle. By so doing they would deprive themselves of the weapons most serviceable for the defence of their treasures as well as of the most fitting occasions for spreading them abroad. Lambert did not go to such a length; but he was persuaded that unless a breath divine, coming from on high, give life to academical teaching, the university would be nothing more than a dead mechanism, and that science, instead of propagating a healthy and enlightened cultivation, would only darken and pervert men’s minds. This is surely a very reasonable and very practical thought, and it is to be regretted that it has not always regulated public instruction.

After the delivery of the inaugural discourses, the rector, Montanus, professor of Civil Law, opened the roll of the university, to enter in it the names of its members. Professors, pastors, state functionaries, nobles, foreigners, students, one hundred and ten persons in all, gave their names. The first to sign was the rector, the second was Lambert; then came Adam Crato, professor Ehrard Schnepf, one of the first Germans converted by Luther, Enricius Cordus, who had accompanied Luther to Worms, and Hermann von dem Busche, professor of Poetry and Eloquence. In a little while three young men of foreign aspect approached. The first of them signed his name thus: Patricius Hamilton, a Litgovien, Scotus, magister Parisiensis;[44] his two friends signed after him.

From that time the Frenchman and the Scotchman frequently studied the Holy Scriptures together, and with interest always new. The large acquaintance with the Word of God which Hamilton possessed, astonished Lambert: the freshness of his thoughts and of his imagination charmed him; the integrity of his character inspired a high esteem for him; his profound remarks on the Gospel edified him. A short time after this, the Frenchman, speaking to the landgrave Philip, said:—‘This young man, of the illustrious family of the Hamiltons, which is closely allied, by the ties of blood, to the king and the kingdom of Scotland,[45] who although hardly twenty-three years of age, brings to the study of Scripture a very sound judgment, and has a vast store of knowledge, is come from the end of the world, from Scotland, to your academy, in order to be more fully established in God’s truth. I have hardly ever met a man who expresses himself with so much spirituality and truth on the Word of the Lord.’ Such is the testimony given in Germany, by a Frenchman, to the young reformer of Scotland.

LUTHER’S ILLNESS.

Will Hamilton remain at Marburg? Shall he not see Luther, Melanchthon, and the other doctors of the Reformation? It has been generally supposed that he did go to Wittenberg; but there is no evidence of this, either in the University registers or in Luther’s or Melanchthon’s letters. This tradition, therefore, appears to us to be unfounded. As Hamilton had, however, formed the intention of visiting Luther when he left Scotland, what motive led him to relinquish his design? It was this. Early in July, at the very time when the young Scotchman might have gone to Wittenberg, a report was spread abroad that Luther had suddenly fallen ill. On July 7 he had lost the use of his senses, his body lay motionless, the heart scarcely beating, while his wife and his weeping friends stood round the bed, on which he was stretched as if dead. He came to himself, however, and, persuaded that he was at the point of death,[46] he resigned himself entirely to the hand of God and prayed with much fervency. At the same time the report ran in Germany that the plague was raging at Wittenberg. When Luther had recovered a little strength, he wrote to Spalatin:—‘May the Lord have pity on me and not forsake his sinner!’[47] Soon after, he had fresh attacks. ‘Ah,’ said he to his friends, ‘people fancy, because joy usually brightens my countenance, that I walk on roses, but God knows how rugged life is for me!’ One day, when Jonas had come to take supper with him, Luther, feeling ill during the meal, suddenly rose, and after taking a few steps fell in a fainting fit. ‘Water, water,’ cried he, ‘or I die.’ As he lay on the bed, he lifted up his eyes and said: ‘O my beloved Lord, thou art master of life and of death, do as it pleaseth thee. Only remember that it is thou who didst bid me undertake this work, and that it is for thy truth, for thy Word, that I have fought.’

On the following day, at six o’clock in the evening, as Jonas again stood by the bedside of his friend, he heard him calling on the Lord, sometimes in German, sometimes in Latin. The thought that he had not done enough, nor suffered enough for his Saviour, distressed him. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘I have not been judged worthy to shed my blood for the love of Christ, as several of my brethren have done.’ Presently a thought consoled him: ‘St. John the Evangelist also,’ said he, ‘had not that honor—he who nevertheless wrote a book (Apocalypse) against the papacy, far more severe than any that I could ever write.’[48] After that he had his little John brought to him, and looking at the mother of the boy, he said, ‘You have nothing; but God will provide for you.’

THE PLAGUE AT WITTENBERG.

The plague, as we have said, was at Wittenberg. Two persons died of it in Melanchthon’s house; one of his sons was attacked, and one of the sons of Jonas lost his life. Hans Luft, the printer of Marburg, who was at Wittenberg on business, fell ill, and his mind wandered.[49] He was removed to Marburg, where Hamilton was.

Terror became general at Wittenberg. All who could do so, and especially the students, quitted the town; the university was transferred to Jena. Luther pressed the elector to go thither with his family, but, he added, in such calamities pastors must bide at their post. He remained therefore, and Melanchthon, who was visiting the churches in Saxony, received orders to go to Jena and resume his lectures there. During this period Luther, having regained some little strength, was visiting the sick and consoling the dying. In the course of a few days he had about him eighteen dead, some of whom even expired almost in his arms.[50] He received into his house the poor, widows, orphans, and even the plague-stricken; his house become a hospital.[51] His wife and his son were attacked. ‘What conflicts!’ cried he, ‘what terrors! No matter; though the malady waste the body, the Word of God saves the soul.’ He again fell ill himself, and thinking that he was nigh to death, he wrote to Melanchthon: ‘Pray for me, vile and miserable worm. I have only one glory, and that is that I have taught purely the word of God.[52] He who has begun the work will complete it. I seek only Him; I thirst for nothing but his grace.’

Such, doubtless, were the circumstances which detained Hamilton at Marburg. On hearing that in consequence of the plague the courses of lectures had partly at least been transferred to Jena, he gave up Wittenberg; and thus is explained quite naturally the want of original documents respecting his alleged sojourn at the Saxon university. A very painful sacrifice was thus demanded of him. Lambert resolved to turn the disappointment to good account. Having a high idea of the faith, the judgment, and abilities of Hamilton, he begged him to compose some theses on the evangelical doctrine, and to defend them publicly. Everyone supported this request; for an academical solemnity, at which a foreign theologian belonging to the royal family of Scotland should hold the chief place, could not fail to throw a certain éclat over the new university. Hamilton consented.[53] His subject was quickly chosen. In his eyes a man’s religion was not sound unless it had its source in the Word of God and in the inmost experience of the soul which receives that Word, and is thereby led into the truth. He deemed it necessary to present the doctrine in this practical aspect, rather than to lose himself in the speculative theorems of an obscure scholasticism.

On the appointed day Hamilton entered the great hall of the university, in which were gathered professors, students, and a numerous audience besides. He announced that he was about to establish a certain number of truths respecting the law and the Gospel, and that he would maintain them against all comers. These theses, all of a practical character, had however somewhat of that dialectical spirit which distinguished at a subsequent period the philosophical schools of Scotland, and were drawn up in a pure and lapidary style which secures for this theologian of three-and-twenty a noteworthy place among the doctors of the sixteenth century.

HAMILTON’S THESES.

‘There is a difference, and even an opposition, between the law and the Gospel,’ said Hamilton. ‘The law showeth us our sin; the Gospel showeth us remedy for it. The law showeth us our condemnation; the Gospel showeth us our redemption. The law is the word of ire; the Gospel is the word of grace. The law is the word of despair; the Gospel is the word of comfort. The law is the word of unrest; the Gospel is the word of peace.[54] The law saith, Pay thy debt; the Gospel saith, Christ hath paid it. The law saith, Thou art a sinner—despair, and thou shalt be damned; the Gospel saith, Thy sins are forgiven thee: be of good comfort, thou shalt be saved. The law saith, Make amends for thy sins; the Gospel saith, Christ hath made it for thee. The law saith, The Father of heaven is angry with thee; the Gospel saith, Christ hath pacified him with his blood. The law saith, Where is thy righteousness, goodness, and satisfaction? the Gospel saith, Christ is thy righteousness, thy goodness, thy satisfaction. The law saith, Thou art bound and obliged to me, to the devil and to hell; the Gospel saith, Christ hath delivered thee from them all.’[55]

The attack began, and the defence of the young Master of Arts was as remarkable as his exposition. Even though he made use of the syllogism, he shook off the dust of the school, and put something perspicuous and striking in its place. When one opponent maintained that a man is justified by the law, Hamilton replied by this syllogism:—

‘That which is the cause of condemnation cannot be the cause of justification.

‘The law is the cause of condemnation.

‘Therefore the law is not the cause of justification.’

His phraseology, clear, concise, and salient—rare qualities in Germany, except perhaps in Luther—his practical, transparent, conscientious Christianity—struck the minds of his hearers. Certainly, said Lambert, Hamilton has put forward thoroughly Christian axioms, and has maintained them with a great deal of learning.[56]

Hamilton engaged in other public disputations besides this. As faith in Christ and justification by faith is the principle which distinguishes Protestantism from other Christian systems, he felt bound to establish the nature, importance, and influence of that doctrine. He believed that faith is born in a man’s heart when, as he hears or reads the Word of God, the Holy Spirit bears witness in his heart to the main truth which is found in it, and shows him with clear proof that Jesus is really an almighty Saviour. Faith was for the young Scotchman a divine work, which he carefully distinguished from a faith merely human. On this subject he laid down and defended the following propositions:—‘He who does not believe the Word of God, does not believe God himself. Faith is the root of all that is good; unbelief is the root of all evil. Faith makes friends of God and of man; unbelief makes enemies of them. Faith lets us see in God a father full of gentleness; unbelief presents him to us as a terrible judge. Faith sets a man steadfast on a rock; unbelief leaves him constantly wavering and tottering. To wish to be saved by works is to make a man’s self his saviour, instead of Jesus Christ. Wouldst thou make thyself equal with God? Wouldst thou refuse to accept the least thing from him without paying him the value of it?’

Fryth, who doubtless took part in the discussion, was so much struck with these theses that he translated them into English, and by that means they have come down to us. ‘The truths which Hamilton expounded are such,’ said he, ‘that the man who is acquainted with them has the pith of all divinity.’[57] ‘This little treatise is short,’ said others who listened to him, ‘but in effect it comprehendeth matter able to fill large volumes.’[58] Yes, Christ is the author of redemption, and faith is the eye which sees and receives him. There are only these two things: Christ sacrificed and the eye which contemplates him. The eye, it is true, is not man’s only organ; we have besides hands to work, feet to walk, ears to hear, and other members more for our service. But none of all these members can see, but only the eye.[59]

HAMILTON’S THESES.

In the midst of all these labors, however, Hamilton was thinking of Scotland. It was not of the benefices which had been conferred on him, not of St. Andrews, nor of the misty lochs or picturesque glens; it was not even of his family, or of his friends that he thought the most. What occupied his mind night and day was the ignorance and superstition in which his countrymen were living. What powerfully appealed to him was the necessity of giving glory to God and of doing good to his own people. And yet would it not be madness to return to them? Had he not seen the animosity of the Scottish clergy? Did he not know well the power of the primate Beatoun? Had he not, only six or seven months before, left his country in all haste? Why then these thoughts of returning? There was good reason for them. Hamilton had been fortified in spirit during his sojourn at Marburg; his faith and his courage had increased; by living with decided Christians, who were ready to give their lives for the Gospel, he had been tempered like steel and had become stronger. It could not be doubted that extreme peril awaited him in Scotland; his two friends, John Hamilton and Wynram, did not understand his impatience and were resolved to wait. But neither their example nor the urgency of Lambert could quench the ardor of the young hero. He felt the sorrow of parting with Lambert and of finally giving up the hope of seeing Luther and Melanchthon; but he had heard God’s call; his one duty was to answer to it. About the end of autumn 1527 he embarked with his faithful servant and sailed towards the shores of Caledonia.

CHAPTER IV.

EVANGELIZATION, TRIBULATIONS, AND SUCCESS OF HAMILTON IN SCOTLAND.

(End of 1527 to the end of February 1528.)

The Church of Rome, in the sixteenth century, especially in Scotland, was far from being apostolic, although it assumed that title: nothing was less like St. John or St. Peter than its primates and its prelates, worldlings and sometimes warriors as they were. The real successors of the apostles were those reformers, who taught the doctrines of the apostles, labored as they did, and like them were persecuted and put to death. The theocratic and political elements combined in Rome have, with certain exceptions, substituted the law, that is, outward worship, ceremonial ordinances, pilgrimages and the exercises of ascetic life for the Gospel. The Reformation was a powerful reaction of the evangelical and moral element against the legal, sacerdotal, ascetic and ritualistic elements which had invaded the Church. This reaction was about to display its energy in Scotland, and Hamilton was to be at first its principal organ.

Already, before his return, the sacred books had arrived in large numbers in the principal ports of the kingdom. Attention had been awakened; but at the same time ignorance, dishonesty, and fanaticism had risen in revolt against the Evangelical Scriptures. The priests said that the Old Testament was the only true one, and pretended that the New had been recently invented by Martin Luther.[60] Consequently, in August 1527, the earl of Angus, at the instigation of Dunbar, bishop of Aberdeen, had confirmed the ordinance of 1525, and had decreed that the king’s subjects who circulated the sacred books should be visited with the same penalties as people from abroad. If, therefore, a vessel arrived at Leith, Dundee, St. Andrews, or Aberdeen, the king’s officers immediately went on board, and if any copies of the New Testament were found there, the ship and the cargo were confiscated and the captain was imprisoned.

HAMILTON’S ZEAL.

Some time after this ordinance, the ship which carried Hamilton reached port, and although this young Christian always had his New Testament in his pocket, he landed without being arrested and went his way to Kincavil. It was about the end of 1527. Patrick tenderly loved his mother and his sister; everybody appreciated his amiable character; the servants and all his neighbors were his friends. This gentleness made his work easier. But his strength lay above all in the depth and the sincerity of his Christian spirit. ‘Christ bare our sins on his back and bought us with his blood’;[61] this was the master chord which vibrated in his soul. In setting forth any subject he silenced his own reasonings and let the Bible speak. No one had a clearer perception of the analogies and the contrasts which characterize the evangelical doctrine. With these intellectual qualities were associated eminent moral virtues; he practised the principles which he held to be true with immovable fidelity; he taught them with a touching charity; he defended them with energetic decision. Whether he approached a laborer, a monk, or a noble, it was with the desire to do him good, to lead him to God. He taxed his ingenuity to devise all means of bearing witness to the truth.[62] His courage was firm, his perseverance unflagging, and in his dignified seriousness his youth was forgotten. His social position added weight to his influence. We have seen that the aristocracy played a far larger part in Scotland than in any other European country. It would have seemed a strange thing to the Scots for a man of the people to meddle with such a matter as reform of the Church; but if the man that spoke to them belonged to an illustrious family, the position which he took appeared to them legitimate, and they were all inclined to listen to his voice. Such was the reformer whom God gave to Scotland.

Patrick’s elder brother, Sir James Hamilton, on succeeding to the estates and titles of his father, had been appointed sheriff of Linlithgowshire. James had not the abilities of his brother, but he was full of uprightness and humility. His wife, Isabella Sempill, belonged to an ancient Scottish family, and ten young children surrounded this amiable pair. Catherine, Patrick’s sister, bore some resemblance to him; she had much simplicity of character, sense, and decision. But it was most of all in the society of his mother, the widow of the valiant knight, that Patrick sought and enjoyed the pure and keen delight of domestic life. He opened his heart to all these beloved ones; he made known to them the peace which he had found in the Gospel, and by degrees his relations were brought to the faith, of which they afterwards gave brilliant evidence.

HAMILTON’S PREACHING.

The zeal which was consuming him could not long be confined within the limits of his own family. His love for the Gospel silenced within him all fear and, full of courage, he was ready to endure the insults which his faith might bring on him. ‘The bright beams of the true light, which by God’s grace were planted in his heart, began most abundantly to burst forth, as well in public as in secret.’[63] Hamilton went about in the surrounding country, his name securing for him everywhere a hearty welcome. When the young laird was seen approaching, laborers left the field which they were cultivating, women came out of every poor cottage, and all gathered about him respectfully and lent him an attentive ear.[64] Priests, citizens from the neighboring town, women of rank, lords quitting their castles, people of all classes, met together there.[65] Patrick received them with a kindly smile and a graceful bearing. He addressed to souls that first word of the Gospel, Be converted! but he also pointed out the errors of the Romish Church.[66] His hearers returned, astonished at his knowledge of the Scriptures, and the people touched by the salvation which he proclaimed increased in number from day to day. Southward of the manor-house of Kincavil extends a chain of rocky hills, whose lofty peaks and slopes, dotted with clumps of trees, produced in the midst of that district a most picturesque effect. There more than once he talked freely about the Gospel with the country-folk, who in the heat of the day came to rest under the shadow of the rocks. Sometimes he climbed the hills, and from their tops contemplated the whole range of country in which he announced the good news. That Craig still exists, a picturesque monument of Hamilton’s Gospel mission.[67]

He began soon to set forth the Gospel in the lowly churches of the neighboring villages; then he grew bolder and preached even in the beautiful sanctuary of St. Michael, at Linlithgow, in the midst of numerous and rich altars. No sooner had the report of his preaching begun to get abroad than everyone wanted to hear him. The name which he bore, his gracious aspect, his learning, his piety, drew about him day by day a larger number of hearers; for a long time such a crowd had not been seen flocking into the church.[68] Linlithgow, the favorite abode of the court, was sometimes bright with unaccustomed splendor. The members of the royal family, and the most illustrious nobles of the kingdom, came to unite with the citizens and the people in the church. This fashionable auditory, whose looks were fixed on the reformer of three-and-twenty, did not at all intimidate him; the plainness, clearness, and conciseness which characterized Hamilton’s style were better adapted to act on the minds of the great than pompous declamation. ‘Knowest thou what this saying means,’ said he, ‘Christ died for thee? Verily that thou shouldest have died perpetually: and Christ, to deliver thee from death, died for thee, and changed thy perpetual death into his own death; for thou madest the fault and He suffered the pain.... He desireth nought of thee but that thou wilt acknowledge what He hath done for thee and bear it in mind: and that thou wouldst help others for his sake, even as He hath holpen thee for nought and without reward.’[69]

HIS MARRIAGE.

Among his hearers was a young maiden of noble birth who with joy received the good news of salvation. Hamilton recognized in her a soul akin to his own. He had adopted the principles of Luther on marriage; he was familiar with the conversations which the reformer had with his friends on the subject and which were reported all over Germany. ‘My father and mother,’ said Luther one day, ‘lived in the holy state of marriage, even the patriarchs and prophets did the same; why should not I do so? Marriage is the holiest state of all, and the celibacy of priests has been the cause of abominable sins. We must marry and thus defy the pope, and assert the liberty which God gives us and which Rome presumes to steal away.’[70] However, to marry was a daring step for Hamilton to take, considering the present necessity, as speaks the apostle Paul. As abbot of Ferne, and connected with the first families of Scotland, his marriage must needs excite to the highest degree the wrath of the priests. Besides which, it would call for great decision on the part of Patrick and genuine sympathy on the part of the young Christian maiden, to unite themselves as it were in sight of the scaffold. The marriage however took place, probably at the beginning of 1528. ‘A little while before his death,’ says Alesius, ‘he married a noble young maiden.’[71] It is possible that the knowledge of this union did not pass beyond the family circle. It remained unknown to his biographers till our own time.[72]

While Hamilton was preaching at Linlithgow, archbishop Beatoun was at the monastery of Dunfermline, about four leagues distant, on the other side of the Forth. The prelate, when he learnt the return of the young noble who had so narrowly escaped him, saw clearly that a missionary animated with Luther’s spirit, thoroughly familiar with the manners of the people, and supported by the powerful family of the Hamiltons, was a formidable adversary. News which crossed the Forth or came from Edinburgh, did but increase the apprehensions of the archbishop. Beatoun was a determined enemy of the Gospel.[73] Having governed Scotland during the minority of the king, he was indignant at the thought of the troubles with which Hamilton’s preaching menaced the Church and the realm. The clergy shared the alarm of their head; the city of St. Andrews, especially, which one Scottish historian has called ‘the metropolis of the kingdom of darkness’,[74] was in a state of great agitation. The dean Spence, the rector Weddel, the official Simson, the canon Ramsay and the heads of various monasteries consulted together and exclaimed that peril was imminent, and that it was absolutely necessary to get rid of so dangerous an adversary.

The archbishop, therefore, took counsel with his nephew and some other clerics as to the best means of making away with Hamilton. Great prudence was needful. They must make sure of the inclinations of Angus; they must divert the attention of the young king who, with his generosity of character, might wish to save his relation; they must in some way ensnare the evangelist, for Beatoun did not dream of sending men-at-arms to seize Patrick at Kincavil in the house of his brother the sheriff. So the archbishop resolved to have recourse to stratagem. In pursuit of the scheme, Hamilton, only a few days after his marriage, received an invitation to go to St. Andrews for the purpose of a friendly conference with the archbishop concerning religion. The young noble, who the year before had divined the perfidious projects of the clergy, knew well the import of the interview which was proposed to him, and he told those who were dear to him that in a few days he should lose his life.[75] His mother, his wife, his brother, his sister, exerted all their influence to keep him from going; but he was determined not to flee a second time; and he asked himself whether the moment was not come in which a great blow might be struck, and the triumph of the Gospel be attained. He declared therefore that he was ready to go to the Scottish Rome.

HAMILTON AT ST. ANDREWS.

On his arrival at St. Andrews the young reformer presented himself before the archbishop, who gave him the most gracious reception. Is it possible that these good graces were sincere, and not treacherous as was generally supposed? Did Beatoun hope to win him back by such means to the bosom of the Church? Every one in the palace testified respect to Hamilton. The prelate had provided for him a lodging in the city, to which he was conducted. Patrick, when he saw the respect with which he was treated, felt still more encouraged to set forth frankly the faith that was in his heart. He went back to the castle where the conference with the archbishop and the other doctors was to be held. All of them displayed a conciliatory spirit: all appeared to recognize the evils in the church; some of them seemed even to share on some points the sentiments of Hamilton. He left the castle full of hope. He thought that he could see in the dense wall of Romish prejudices a small opening which by the hand of God might soon be widened.

He lost no time. Left perfectly free he went and came whithersoever he would, and was allowed to defend his opinions without any obstacle being thrown in his way. This was part of the plot. If the archbishop himself were capable of some kindly feeling, his nephew David and several others were pitiless. They wished Hamilton to speak, and to speak a good deal; he must be taken in the very fact, that they might dare to put him to death. Among those who listened to him there were present, without his being aware of it, some who took notes of his sayings and immediately made their report. His enemies were not satisfied with letting him move about freely in private houses, but even the halls of the university were opened to him; he might ‘teach there and discuss there openly,’ as an eyewitness tells us,[76] respecting the doctrines, the sacraments, the rites and the administration of the Church. Many people were pleased to hear this young noble announce, with the permission of the primate of Scotland, dogmas so strange. ‘They err,’ said Hamilton to his audience, ‘whose religion consists in men’s merits, in traditions, laws, canons, and ceremonies, and who make little or no mention of the faith of Christ. They err who make the Gospel to be a law, and Christ to be a Moses. To put the law in the place of the Gospel is to put on a mourning gown in the feast of a marriage.’[77] Then he repeated what he had already asserted at Marburg, what Luther had said, what Jesus Christ had said:—‘It is not good works which make a good man; but it is a good man who makes good works.’[78] It was above all for this proposition, so Christian, so clear, that he was to be attacked.

The enemies of the young reformer exulted when they heard him avow principles so opposed to those of Rome; but desirous of compromising him still further, they engaged him in private conversations, in which they tried hard to draw him to the extreme of his anti-Romish convictions. Nevertheless, there were among his hearers righteous men who loved this young Scotchman, so full of love for God and for men, who went to his house, confided to him their doubts, and desired his guidance. He received them with kindliness, frequently invited them to his table, and sought to do good to them all.

HIS DISCUSSION WITH ALESIUS.

Among the canons of St. Andrews was Alexander Alane, better known under the Latin name of Alesius, who in his boyhood had narrowly escaped death on Arthur’s Seat. This young man, of modest character, with a tender heart, a moderate yet resolute spirit, and a fine intelligence which had been developed by the study of ancient languages, had made great progress in scholastic divinity, and had taken his place at an early age among the adversaries of the Reformation.[79] His keenest desire was to break a lance with Luther; controversy with the reformer was at that time the great battle-field on which the doctors, young and old, aspired to give proof of their valor. As he could not measure himself personally with the man whom he named arch-heretic, Alesius had refuted his doctrine in a public discussion held at the university. The theologians of St. Andrews had covered him with applause.[80] ‘Assuredly,’ said they, ‘if Luther had been present, he would have been compelled to yield.’ The fairest hopes, too, were entertained respecting the young doctor. Alesius, alive to these praises, and a sincere Catholic, thought that it would be an easy task for him to convince young Hamilton of his errors. He had been acquainted with him before his journey to Marburg; he loved him; and he desired to save him by bringing him back from his wanderings.

With this purpose he visited the young noble. Conversation began. Alesius was armed cap-à-pié, crammed with scholastic learning,[81] and with all the formulæ quomodo sit, quomodo non sit. Hamilton had before him nothing but the Gospel, and he replied to all the reasonings of his antagonist with the clear, living, and profound word of the Scriptures. It has happened more than once that sincere men have embraced the truth a little while after having pronounced against it. Alesius, struck and embarrassed, was silenced, and felt as if ‘the morning-star were rising in his heart.’ It was not merely his understanding that was convinced. The breath of a new life penetrated his soul, and at the moment when the scaffolding of his syllogisms fell to the ground, the truth appeared to him all radiant with glory. He did not content himself with that first conference, but frequently came again to see Hamilton, taking day by day more and more pleasure in his discourse. His conscience was won, his mind was enlightened. On returning to his priory cell, he pondered with amazement on the way he had just gone. ‘The result of my visit has been contrary to all my expectation,’ said he; ‘I thought that I should bring Hamilton back to the doctrine of Rome, and instead of that he has brought me to acknowledge my own error.’[82]

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.

One day another speaker came to Hamilton. This was a young ecclesiastic, Alexander Campbell, prior of the Dominicans, who like Alesius had a fine genius, great learning,[83] and a kindly disposition.[84] The archbishop, who knew his superiority, begged him to visit Hamilton frequently, and to spare no efforts to win him back to the Roman doctrine. Campbell obeyed his chief; but while certain priests or monks craftily questioned the young doctor with the intention of destroying him, the prior of the Dominicans had it in mind to save him. It is a mistake to attribute to him from the first any other intention. Campbell, like Alesius, was open to the truth, but the love of the world and its favors prevailed in him, and therein lay his danger. He frequently conversed with Hamilton on the true sense of the Scriptures, and acknowledged the truth of Patrick’s words. ‘Yes,’ said the prior, ‘the Church is in need of reformation in many ways.’[85] Hamilton, pleased with this admission, hoped to bring him to the faith, like Alesius, and having no fear of a friend whom he already looked on almost as a brother, he kept back none of his thoughts, and attached himself to him with all sincerity. But after several interviews, Campbell received orders from the archbishop to go to him to give an account of the result of his proceedings. This request astonished and disturbed the prior; and when he stood before Beatoun and his councillors, he was intimidated, overpowered by fear at the thought of offending the primate, and of incurring the censures of the Church. He would fain have obeyed at the same time both the Lord and the bishop,—he would fain have served God and sucked-in honors; but he saw no means of reconciling the Gospel and the world. When he saw all looks turned on him he was agitated, he wavered, and told everything which the young noble of Kincavil had said to him in the freedom of brotherly confidence. He appeared to condemn him, and even consented to become one of his judges. Choosing ease, reputation, and life rather than persecution, opprobrium, and death, Campbell turned his back on the truth and abandoned Hamilton.

When the young reformer heard of Campbell’s treachery, it was a great sorrow to him; but he was not disheartened. On the contrary, he went on teaching with redoubled zeal, both at his own lodging and in the university. He bore witness, ‘with hand and with foot,’ as used to be said at that time (that is to say, with all his heart and with all his might), to the Word of God. For making a beginning of the work of reformation there was no place in the kingdom more important than St. Andrews. Hamilton found there students and professors, priests, monks of the orders of St. Augustine, St. Francis, and St. Dominic, canons, deans, members of the ecclesiastical courts, nobles, jurisconsults, and laymen of all classes. This was the wide and apparently favorable field on which for one month he scattered plentifully the divine seed.[86]

The adversaries of the New Testament, when they saw the success of Hamilton’s teachings, grew more and more alarmed every day. There must be no more delay, they thought; all compliance must cease, and the great blow must be struck. Patrick was cited to appear at the archiepiscopal palace, to make answer to a charge of heresy brought against him. His friends in alarm conjured him to fly: it seemed that even the archbishop would have been glad to see him set out once more for Germany. Lord Hamilton, earl of Arran, was at once Patrick’s uncle and the primate’s nephew by marriage. The primate would naturally show some consideration for a young man whose family he respected;[87] but the obstacle was to be raised on the part of Hamilton himself. When he crossed the North Sea to return to Scotland, he had resolved to lay down his life, if need be, if only by his death Christ should be magnified. The joy of a good conscience was so firmly established in his soul that no bodily suffering could take it away.

As Patrick was not minded to fly from the scaffold, his enemies determined to rid themselves of so formidable an antagonist.

One obstacle, however, lay in their way. Would the king, feeble and thoughtless, but still humane and generous, permit them to sacrifice this young member of his family, who excited the admiration even of his adversaries? James V. felt really interested in Patrick: he wished to see him, and had urged him to be reconciled with the bishops.[88] If at the last moment the Hamiltons should entreat his pardon, how could he refuse it? To evade this difficulty, the Roman clergy resolved to get the young monarch removed out of the way. His father, James IV., used to make a yearly pilgrimage to the chapel of St. Duthac, founded by James III., in Ross-shire, in the north of Scotland. The bishops determined to persuade this prince, then only seventeen, to undertake this long journey although it was then the depth of winter.[89] The king consented, either because he was artfully misled by the priests, or because, seeing that they were determined to get rid of Hamilton, he would rather let them alone, and wash his hands of it. He set out for St. Duthac,[90] and the priests immediately applied themselves to their task.

HAMILTON’S DEATH RESOLVED ON.

The tidings of the imminent danger which threatened Patrick brought anxiety into the manor-house of Kincavil. His wife, his mother, and his sister were deeply moved: Sir James was determined not to confine himself to useless lamentation, but to snatch his brother out of the hands of his enemies. As sheriff of Linlithgow and captain of one of the king’s castles, he could easily assemble some men-at-arms, and he set out for St. Andrews at the head of a small force, confident that in case of success James V., on his return from Duthac, would grant him a bill of indemnity.[91] But when he reached the shores of the Forth, which had to be crossed on his way into Fifeshire, he found the waters in agitation from a violent storm, so that he could not possibly make the passage.[92] Sir James and his men-at-arms stopped on the coast, watching the waves with mournful hearts, and listening in anguish to the roar of the storm. When the archbishop heard of the appearance of a troop on the other side the Forth, he collected a large body of horsemen to repulse the attack.[93] Those who were bent on rescuing Hamilton were as full of ardor as those who were bent on his destruction. Which of the two parties would win the day?

CHAPTER V.
APPEARANCE, CONDEMNATION, MARTYRDOM.
(End of February–March 1, 1528.)

The Word of God, when heard among men, has a twofold effect. The first, as we have seen, is to win souls for God by the charm of the divine love which it reveals; but that is not all. It not only gives but demands: it insists on a new heart and a new life. The pride of man revolts against the commandments of God: the heart incensed is bitter against those who announce them, and impels to persecution. The evangelical word, like the creative, separates light from darkness, those who are obedient from those who rebel. This is what was then taking place in Scotland.

HAMILTON BEFORE THE BISHOPS.

Hamilton rose early on the day on which he was to appear before the bishop’s council.[94] Calm and yet fervent in spirit, he burned with desire to make confession of the truth in the presence of that assembly. Without waiting for the hour which had been fixed, he left his abode and presented himself unexpectedly at the archbishop’s palace, between seven and eight o’clock not long after sunrise. Beatoun was already at his task, wishing to confer with the members of his council before the sitting. They went and told him that Hamilton was come and was asking for him. The archbishop took good care not to give him a private interview. The several heresies of which Hamilton was accused had been formulated. All who took part in the affair were agreed as to the heads of the indictment. Beatoun resolved at once to take advantage of Hamilton’s eagerness, and to advance the sitting. The archbishop directed the court to constitute itself: each member took his place according to his rank, and they had the accused before them. One of the members of the council was commissioned to unfold before the young doctor the long catalogue of heresies laid to his charge. Hamilton was brought in. He had expected to converse with Beatoun in private, but he found himself suddenly before a tribunal of sombre and inquisitorial aspect; the lion’s jaws were open before him. However, he remained gentle and calm before the judges, although he knew that they had resolved to take away his life.

‘You are charged,’ said the commissioner, ‘with teaching false doctrines: 1st, that the corruption of sin remains in the child after baptism; 2nd, that no man is able by mere force of free will to do any good thing; 3rd, that no one continues without sins so long as he is in this life; 4th, that every true Christian must know if he is in the state of grace; 5th, that a man is not justified by works but by faith alone; 6th, that good works do not make a good man, but that a good man makes good works; 7th, that faith, hope and charity are so closely united that he who has one of these virtues has also the others; 8th, that it may be held that God is cause of sin in this sense, that when he withholds his grace from a man, the latter cannot but sin; 9th, that it is a devilish doctrine to teach that remission of sins can be obtained by means of certain penances; 10th, that auricular confession is not necessary to salvation; 11th, that there is no purgatory; 12th, that the holy patriarchs were in heaven before the passion of Jesus Christ; and 13th, that the pope is Antichrist, and that a priest has just as much power as a pope.’[95]

The young reformer of Scotland had listened attentively to this long series of charges, drawn up in somewhat scholastic terms. In the official indictment of the priests were included some doctrines for the maintenance of which Hamilton was willing to lay down his life; others which, he admitted, were fair subjects for discussion; but the primate’s theologians had, in their zeal, piled up all that they could find, true or false, essential or accidental, and had flung the confused mass at the young man in order to crush him. One of the clergy, who had visited him for the purpose of catching him unawares in some heresy, had given out that the reformers made God the author of sin. Patrick had denied it, saying,—and this was matter of reproach in the 8th article,—that a sinner may get to such a pitch of obduracy that God leaves him because he will no longer hear him. Hamilton, therefore, made a distinction between the various heads of the indictment. ‘I declare,’ said he, ‘that I look on the first seven articles as certainly true, and I am ready to attest them with a solemn oath. As for the other points they are matter for discussion; but I cannot pronounce them false until stronger reasons are given me for rejecting them than any which I have yet heard.’

The doctors conferred with Hamilton on each point; and the thirteen articles were then referred to the judgment of a commission of divines nominated by the primate. A day or two later, the commissioners made their report, and declared all the articles, without exception, to be heretical. The primate then, in order that the judgment might be invested with special solemnity, announced that sentence would be delivered in the cathedral on the last day of February, before an assembly of the clergy, the nobility, and the people.[96]

ANDREW DUNCAN’S ATTEMPT.

While the priests were making ready to put to death one of the members of the illustrious family of the Hamiltons, some noble-hearted laymen were preparing to rescue him. The men of Linlithgow were not the only ones to stir in the matter. John Andrew Duncan, laird of Airdrie, who, as we have seen, was taken prisoner by the English at the battle of Flodden, had, during his captivity, found friends in England, whom he gained for the Gospel. On his return to Scotland, he had opened his house as an asylum for the gospellers, and had become intimate with the Hamiltons. Hearing of the danger that beset Patrick, indignant at the conduct of the bishops and burning with desire to save the young reformer, Duncan had armed his tenants and his servants, and then marching towards the metropolitan city, intended to enter it by night, to carry off his friend and conduct him to England. But the archbishop’s horsemen, warned of the enterprise, set out and surrounded Duncan’s feeble troop, disarmed them and made Duncan prisoner. The life of this noble evangelical Christian was spared at the intercession of his brother-in-law, who was in command of the forces which captured him, but he had once more to quit Scotland.[97]

This attempt had been frustrated just at the moment when the commissioners presented their report on the alleged heresies of Hamilton. There was no longer any need for hesitation on the part of the archbishop; he therefore ordered the arrest of the young evangelist. Wishing to prevent any resistance, the governor of the castle of St. Andrews, who was to carry out the order, waited till night; and then putting himself at the head of a well-armed body of men, he silently surrounded the house in which Hamilton dwelt.[98] According to one historian, he had already retired to rest; according to others, he was in the society of pious and devoted friends and was conversing with them. The young reformer, while he appreciated the affection and the eagerness of his friend Duncan, had no wish that force should be employed to save him. He knew that of whatever nature the war is, such must the weapons be; that for a spiritual war the weapons must be spiritual; that Christ’s soldiers must fight only with the sword of the holy Word. He remained calm in the conviction that God disposes all that befalls his children in such wise that what the world thinks an evil turns out for good to them. At the very moment when the soldiers were surrounding his house, he felt himself encompassed with solid ramparts, knowing that God marshals his forces around his people, as if for the defence of a fortress. At that moment there were knocks at the door: it was the governor of the castle. Hamilton knew what it meant. He rose, went forward accompanied by his friends, and opening the door asked the governor whom he wanted;[99] the latter having answered, Hamilton said, ‘It is I!’ and gave himself up. Then pointing to his friends he added, ‘You will allow them to retire;’[100] and he entreated them not to make any resistance to lawful authority. But these ardent Christians could not bear the thought of losing their friend. ‘Promise us,’ they said to the governor, ‘promise us to bring him back safe and sound.’ The officer only replied by taking away his prisoner. On the summit of huge rocks which rise perpendicularly from the sea, and whose base is ceaselessly washed by the waves, stood at that time the castle whose picturesque remains serve still as a beacon to the mariner. It was within the walls of this feudal stronghold that Hamilton was taken and confined.

HAMILTON IN THE CASTLE.

The last day of February at length arrived, the day fixed by the archbishop for the solemn assembly at which sentence was to be pronounced. The prelate, followed by a large number of bishops, abbots, doctors, heads of religious orders, and the twelve commissioners, entered the cathedral—a building some centuries old, which was to be cast down in a day by a word of Knox, and whose magnificent ruins still astonish the traveller.[101] Beatoun sat on the bench of the inquisitorial court, and all the ecclesiastical judges took their places round him. Among these was observed Patrick Hepburn, prior of St. Andrews, son of the earl of Bothwell, a worthless and dissolute man, who had eleven illegitimate children, and who gloried in bringing distress and dishonor into families. This veteran of immorality—who ought to have been on the culprit’s seat, but whose pride was greater even than his licentiousness—took his place with a shameless countenance on the judges’ bench. Not far from him was David Beatoun, abbot of Arbroath, an ambitious young man, who was already coveting his uncle’s dignity, and who, as if to prepare himself for a long work of persecution, vigorously pressed on the condemnation of Patrick. In the midst of these hypocrites and fanatics sat one man in a state of agitation and distress—the prior of the Dominicans, Alexander Campbell—with his countenance gloomy and fallen. A great crowd of canons, priests, monks, nobles, citizens, and the common people, filled the church; some of them greedy for the spectacle which was to be presented to them, others sympathizing with Hamilton. ‘I was myself present,’ said Alesius, ‘a spectator of that tragedy.’[102]

The tramp of horses was presently heard: the party of troops sent to seek Hamilton were come. The young evangelist passed into the church, and had to mount a lofty desk, from which he could be easily seen and heard by the assembly. All eyes were turned towards him. ‘Ah,’ said pious folk, ‘if this young Christian had been a worldling, and had given himself up, like the other lords of the court, to a life of dissipation and rioting,[103] he would doubtless have been loved by everybody; and this flower of youth which we now look on would have blown amidst flatteries and delights. But because to his rank he has added piety and virtue, he must fall under the blows of the wicked.’

THE TRIAL.

The proceedings began. The commissioners presented their report to the court, duly signed. Then Alexander Campbell rose, for the archbishop had charged him to read the indictment, and the unfortunate man had not dared to refuse the horrible task. Hamilton was affected at seeing that man whom he took for his friend appear as his accuser. However, he listened with calmness to the address. His quietude, his noble simplicity, his frankness, his trust in the Lord, impressed every one. ‘Truly,’ said Alesius, ‘no man ever more fully realized that saying, ‘Trust in the Lord and do good.’[104] A contest began between the prior of the Dominicans and the young reformer. The latter, determined to defend his faith in the presence of that great assembly, pointed out the sophistry of his accusers, and established the truth by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures. Campbell replied; but Hamilton, always armed with the Word of God, rejoined, and his adversary was silenced. Campbell, unhappy and distressed, inwardly convinced of the doctrine professed by his old friend, could do no more. He approached the tribunal and asked for instructions. The bishops and the theologians, having no mind for a public debate, directed Campbell to enumerate with a loud voice certain errors which had not yet been reduced to formal articles, and to call Hamilton heretic.[105] This was putting the poor Dominican to fresh torture; but he must hold on to the end. He turned therefore towards Hamilton and said aloud—‘Heretic! thou hast said that all men have the right to read the Word of God. Thou hast said that it is against the divine law to worship images. Thou hast said that it is idle to invoke the saints and the Virgin. Thou hast said that it is useless to celebrate masses to save souls from purgatory....’ Here the unfortunate Campbell stopped. ‘Purgatory!’ exclaimed Patrick; ‘nothing purifies souls but the blood of Jesus Christ.’[106] At these words, Campbell turned to the archbishop and said, ‘My lords, you hear him; he despises the authority of our holy father the pope.’ Then, as if he meant to stifle by insults the voice of the noble and courageous Christian, ‘Heretic,’ cried he, ‘rebel! detestable! execrable! impious!...’ Hamilton, turning towards him, said, in accents full of kindness, ‘My brother, thou dost not in thy very heart believe what thou art saying.’[107] This was too much. The word of tender reproof pierced like a dart the soul of the unhappy Dominican. To find himself treated with so much gentleness by the man whose death he was urging rent his heart, and an accusing cry was heard in the depths of his soul.[108] Campbell was embarrassed and silenced. Hamilton’s charity had heaped coals of fire on his head.[109]

Then began the taking of votes. The members of the court unanimously condemning the innocent man, the primate rose and said,—‘Christi nomine invocato,—We, James, by the grace of God archbishop of St. Andrews, primate of Scotland, sitting in judgment in our metropolitan church, have found Patrick Hamilton infected with divers heresies of Martin Luther, which have been already condemned by general councils. We therefore declare the said Hamilton a heretic; we condemn him; we deprive him of all dignities, orders, and benefices, and we deliver him over to the secular arm to be punished.’[110]

Having thus spoken, the primate laid on the table the sentence which he had just read, and the bishops, priors, abbots, and doctors present came and signed the document one by one. The primate next, with the view of investing the act with more authority, invited such persons as had a certain rank in the university to set their hands likewise to it. Young boys—the earl of Cassilis, for example, who was only thirteen—were of the number. The priests persuaded them that they thereby did God service, and this was very flattering to such children. The court rose, and an escort of some thousands of armed men conducted Hamilton back to the castle.[111]

This numerous escort showed the fears which the clergy entertained. Duncan’s attempt had failed, but Sir James Hamilton was still at the head of his soldiers, and many other persons in Scotland were interested about this young man. But nothing short of the death of their victim could pacify the priests. They decided that the sentence should be executed the same day. The primate was sure of the coöperation of the government. Angus offered no opposition to this iniquitous proceeding. Thus condemnation had hardly been pronounced when the executioner’s servants were seen before the gate of St. Salvator’s College, raising the pile on which Hamilton was to be burnt.

AT THE STAKE.

While they were heaping up the wood and driving in the stake, Patrick was taking his last meal in one of the rooms of the castle; he ate moderately, as his custom was, but without the slightest agitation; his countenance was perfectly serene. He was going to meet death with good courage, because it would admit him into his Father’s house; he hoped, too, that his martyrdom would be gain to the Church of God. The hour of noon struck: it was the time appointed for the execution. Hamilton bade them call the governor of the castle. That officer appeared; he was deeply affected. Hamilton, without leaving the table, inquired of him whether all was ready?[112] The governor, whose heart was breaking to see such innocence and nobleness requited with a cruel death, could not find courage to pronounce a single word which would point to the scaffold, and he answered with emotion, Dii meliora, ‘God give you a better fate!’ Hamilton understood him, got up, took the Gospel in one hand, grasped affectionately with the other the hand of the sympathizing governor, and went like a lamb to execution.[113] He was accompanied by a few friends, his faithful servant followed, and a numerous guard escorted him. He set the cross of Christ, which he then bore, above all the delights of life.[114] His soul was full of a glorious and solid joy, which was worth more than the joy of the world.

He arrived at the spot. All was ready—wood, coal, powder, and other combustible material. Standing before the pile, he uncovered his head, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, remained motionless for some moments in prayer.[115] Then he turned to his friends and handed to one of them his copy of the Gospels. Next, calling his servant, he took off his cloak, his coat, and his cap, and with his arms stretched out presented them to him and said—‘Take these garments, they can do me no service in the fire, and they may still be of use to thee. It is the last gift thou wilt receive from me, except the example of my death, the remembrance of which I pray thee to bear in mind. Death is bitter for the flesh ... but it is the entrance into eternal life, which none can possess who deny Jesus Christ.’[116] The archbishop, wishing to ingratiate himself with the powerful family of the Hamiltons, had ordered some of his clergy to offer the young reformer his life on condition of his submitting to the absolute authority of the pope. ‘No,’ replied Hamilton, ‘your fire will not make me recant the faith which I have professed. Better that my body should burn in your flames for having confessed the Saviour, than that my soul should burn in hell for having denied him. I appeal to God from the sentence pronounced against me, and I commit myself to his mercy.’[117]

INSULTS OF CAMPBELL.

The executioners came to fulfil their part. They passed an iron chain round the victim’s body, and thus fastened him to the stake which rose above the pile. Conscious that acute pains might lead him to err, Hamilton prayed to God that the flames might not extort from him the least word which should grieve his divine master. ‘In the name of Jesus,’ he added, ‘I give up my body to the fire, and commit my soul into the hands of the Father.’ Three times the pile was kindled, and three times the fire went out because the wood was green.[118] Suddenly the powder placed among the faggots exploded, and a piece of wood shot against Hamilton flayed part of his body; but death was not yet come. Turning to the deathsman, he said mildly, ‘Have you no dry wood?’ Several men hastened to get some at the castle. Alexander Campbell was present, struggling with his evil conscience, and in a state of violent agitation which rose with his distress and misery. The servants of the executioner brought some dry wood and quickened the fire. ‘Heretic,’ said Campbell, ‘be converted! recant! call upon Our Lady; only say, Salve Regina.’ ‘If thou believest in the truth of what thou sayest,’ replied Patrick, ‘bear witness to it by putting the tip only of thy finger into the fire in which my whole body is burning.[119]’ The unhappy Dominican took good care to do no such thing. He began to insult the martyr. Then Hamilton said to him, ‘Depart from me, messenger of Satan.’ Campbell, enraged, stormed round the victim like a roaring lion. ‘Submit to the pope,’ he cried; ‘there is no salvation but in union with him.’ Patrick was broken-hearted with grief at seeing to what a pitch of obduracy his old friend had come. ‘Thou wicked man,’ said he to him, ‘thou knowest the contrary well enough; thou hast told me so thyself.’ This noble victim, then, chained to the post and already half-burnt, feeling himself to be superior to the wretched man who was vexing him, spoke as a judge, commanded as a king, and said to the Dominican, ‘I appeal thee before the tribunal seat of Christ Jesus.’[120] At these words Campbell, ceasing his outcries, remained mute, and leaving the place, fled affrighted into his monastery. His mind wandered; he was seized with madness; he was like one possessed by a demon, and in a little while he died.[121]

The tenderest affections succeeded these most mournful emotions in Hamilton’s heart. He was drawing near to the moment of heart-rending separations: but his thoughts, though turning heavenward, were not turned away from his home at Kincavil. He had cherished the hope of becoming a father; and some time afterwards his wife gave birth to a daughter who was named Issobel. She lived at court in later years, and received on more than one occasion tokens of the royal favor.[122] Hamilton, who had always felt the tenderest respect for his mother, did not forget her at the stake, but commended her to the love of his friends.[123] After his wife and his mother, he was mindful of his native place. ‘O God,’ said he, ‘open the eyes of my fellow-citizens, that they may know the truth!’

HAMILTON’S DEATH.

While the martyr’s heart was thus overflowing with love, several of the wretches who stood round him aggravated his sufferings. A baker took an armful of straw and threw it into the fire to increase its intensity; at the same moment a gust of wind from the sea quickened the flames, which rose above the stake. The chain round Patrick’s body was red-hot, and had by this time almost burnt him in two.[124] One of the bystanders, probably a friend of the Gospel, cried to him, ‘If thou still holdest true the doctrine for which thou diest, make us a sign.’ Two fingers of his hand were consumed; stretching out his arm, he raised the other three, and held them motionless in sign of his faith.[125] The torment had lasted from noon, and it was now nearly six o’clock. Hamilton was burnt over a slow fire.[126] In the midst of the tumult he was heard uttering this cry, ‘O God, how long shall darkness cover this realm, how long wilt thou permit the tyranny of men to triumph?’ The end was drawing nigh. The martyr’s arm began to fail: his three fingers fell. He said, ‘Lord Jesus! receive my spirit.’ His head drooped, his body sank down, and the flames completed their ravage and reduced it to ashes.

The crowd dispersed, thrilled by this grand and mournful sight, and never was the memory of this young reformer’s death effaced in the hearts of those who had been eyewitnesses of it. It was deeply engraven in the soul of Alesius. ‘I saw,’ said he, several years afterwards in some town in Germany, ‘I saw in my native land the execution of a high-born man, Patrick Hamilton.’[127] And he told the story in brief and penetrating words. ‘How singular was the fate of the two Hamiltons! Father and son both died a violent death: the former died the death of a hero; the latter, that of a martyr. The father had been in Scotland the last of the knights of the Middle Ages; the son was in the same land the first of the soldiers of Christ in the new time. The father brought honor to his family by winning many times the palm of victory in tournaments and combats; the son,’ says an illustrious man, Théodore Beza, ‘ennobled the royal race of the Hamiltons, sullied afterwards by some of its members, and adorned it with that martyr’s crown which is infinitely more precious than all kingly crowns.’[128]

CHAPTER VI.
ALESIUS.
(End of February 1528 to the end of 1531.)

EFFECTS OF HAMILTON’S DEATH.

That saying of Christian antiquity, ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,’ was perhaps never verified in a more striking manner than in the case of Hamilton. The rumor of his death, reverberating in loud echoes from the Highlands, ran over the whole land. It was much the same as if the famous big cannon of Edinburgh Castle, Mons Meg, had been fired and the report had been re-echoed from the Borders to Pentland Frith. Nothing was more likely to win feudal Scotland to the Reformation than the end, at once so holy and so cruel, of a member of a family so illustrious. Nobles, citizens, and the common people, nay, even priests and monks, were on the point of being aroused by this martyrdom. Hamilton, who by his ministry was reformer of Scotland, became still more so by his death. For God’s work, a life long and laborious would have been of less service than were his trial, condemnation, and execution, all accomplished on one day. By giving up his earthly life for a life imperishable, he announced the end of the religion of the senses, and began the worship in spirit and in truth. The pile to which the priests had sent him became a throne, his torture was a triumph, and when the Crowns of the Martyrs were celebrated in Scotland, voices were heard exclaiming:—

E cœlo alluxit primam Germania lucem,

Qua Lanus et vitreis qua fluit Albis aquis.

Intulit huic lucem nostræ Dux prævius oræ.

O felix terra! hoc si foret usa duce!

Dira superstitio grassata tyrannide in omnes,

Omniaque involvens Cimmeriis tenebris,

Illa nequit lucem hanc sufferre. Ergo omnis in unum,

Fraude, odiis, furiis, turba cruenta coit.

Igne cremant. Vivus lucis qui fulserat igne,

Par erat, ut moriens lumina ab igne daret.[129]

People everywhere wanted to know the cause for which this young noble had given his life, and everyone took the side of the victim. ‘Just at the time when those cruel wolves,’ said Knox, ‘had, as they supposed, clean devoured their prey, a great crowd surrounded them and demanded of them an account for the blood which they had shed.’ ‘The faith for which Hamilton was burnt,’ said many, ‘is that which we will have.’ In vain was it that the guilty men, convicted by their own consciences, were inflamed with wrath, and uttered proud threats;[130] for everywhere the abuses and errors which up to that time had been venerated were called in question.[131] Such were the happy results of Hamilton’s death.

As the news spread, however, in foreign lands, very different feelings were aroused. The doctors of Louvain, writing to the clergy of Scotland, said, ‘We are equally delighted with the work which you have done and with the way in which you have done it.’[132] Others showed themselves not so much charmed with such hatred, stratagem, and cruelty. A Christian man in England wrote to the Scottish nobles, ‘Hamilton is now living with Christ whom he confessed before the princes of this world, and the voice of his blood, like the blood of Abel, cries to heaven.’[133] Francis Lambert, especially his friend and companion, was a prey to intense grief: he said to the landgrave, ‘Hamilton has offered up to God and to the Church, as a sacrifice, not only the lustre of his rank, but also his youthful prime.’[134]

JAMES V. FLIGHT.

Some days after, the king returned from the north of Scotland, whither the priests had sent him to worship some relics. Hamilton was no more. What were the feelings of James V. when he learnt the death of this noble scion of the royal house? We have no means of ascertaining them. The young prince seemed to be more alive to the humiliation to which the nobles subjected him than to the cruelty of the priests. Fretted by the state of dependence in which Angus kept him, he made complaint of it to Henry VIII.[135] Hunting was his only amusement, and for the sake of enjoying it he had taken up his abode at Falkland Castle. On a sudden, caring no more for hounds, foxes, or deer, he conceived the project of regaining his freedom and his authority. This might be fraught with grave consequences for the Reformation. If at a time when the nobles kept a tight hand over the priestly party Hamilton had been put to death, what might happen in Scotland when the priests, on whom James leaned for support, should have once more seized the chief power? The deliverance of the young king, however, was no easy matter. A hundred men, selected by Angus, were about him night and day; and the captain of his guards, the minister of the royal house and the lord treasurer of the kingdom, had orders to keep their eyes constantly upon him. He determined to resort to stratagem. He said one evening to his courtiers, ‘We will rise very early to-morrow to go stag-hunting; be ready.’ Everyone retired early to rest; but no sooner had the prince entered his chamber than he called one of his pages in whom he had full confidence. ‘Jockie,’ said he to him; ‘dost thou love me?’ ‘Better than myself, Sire.’—‘Wilt thou run some risk for my sake?’ ‘Risk my life, Sire.’ James explained to him his design; and then, disguising himself as a groom, he went into his stables with the page and a valet. ‘We are come to get the horses ready for the hunt to-morrow,’ said the three grooms. Some moments elapsed; they went noiselessly out of the castle, and set off at a gallop for Stirling Castle, where the queen-mother was residing. The king arrived there in the early morning. ‘Draw up the bridges,’ said he, so fearful was he of his pursuers. ‘Let down the portcullises, set sentinels at all points.’ He was worn out with fatigue, having been on horseback all night; but he refused to lie down until the keys of all the gates had been placed under his pillow; then he laid down his head upon them and went to sleep. On the morning after this flight, Sir George Douglas, the king’s guardian, rose without suspicion, thinking only of the hunt which James had appointed. While he was taking certain precautions against the escape of the prince, a stranger arrived and asked to speak to Sir George. It was the bailiff of Abernethy. He entered the apartment of the royal gaoler, and announced to him that in the course of the night the king had crossed the bridge at Stirling. Sir George, startled at this unlooked-for news, ran to the apartment of the king; he knocked, and as no one answered, he had the door burst open. He looked round on all sides and exclaimed, ‘Treachery! the king is fled!’ He gave instant notice to his brother, the earl of Angus, and sent messengers in all directions with orders to arrest the king wheresoever he might be found. All was useless. The tidings of this event being spread abroad, the enemies of the Douglases hastened in crowds to Stirling. Without loss of time the king called together the parliament and got a decree of banishment issued against Angus. The latter, cast down suddenly from the height of greatness, made his escape into England, passing safely through many difficulties and dangers.

From that time James V. bore rule himself, so far at least as the priests would allow him. In the character of this strange prince were combined insatiable ambition and unparalleled feebleness, kindliness full of affability and implacable resentment, a great regard for justice and violent passions, an eager desire to protect the weak from the oppression of the powerful and fits of rage which did not spare even the lowly. The king reigned, but the clergy governed. As the aim of James V. was to humble the nobles, a close alliance with the clergy was a necessity for him, and once having taken the side of the priests, he went to great lengths. The archbishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the bishop of Dunkeld, and the abbot of Holyrood were placed at the head of the government, and the most distinguished members of the aristocracy were immediately imprisoned or sent into exile. No Douglas, and no partisan even of that house, was allowed to come within twelve miles of the court. Persecution attacked at the same time the evangelical Christians; men who might have elevated their country perished on the scaffold. The course pursued by the priests tended to defeat their own end. The nobles, exasperated by the tyranny of the bishops, began to feel the aversion for the Church of Rome which they felt for its leading men. It was not indeed from the Romish religion that they broke off, but only from an ambitious and merciless hierarchy. But erelong we shall find the nobles, ever more and more provoked by the clergy, beginning to lend a willing ear to the evangelical doctrine of those who opposed the clergy.

ALESIUS.

Before that moment arrived, the conquests of the Reformation in Scotland had begun. It counted already many humble but devout adherents in convents, parsonage houses and cottages. At the head of the canons of St. Augustine at St. Andrews was an immoral man, an enemy of the Gospel, prior Hepburn; nevertheless, it was among them that the awakening began. One of the canons, Alesius, had been confirmed in the faith of the Gospel by the testimony which Hamilton had borne to the truth during his trial, and by the simple and heroic beauty of his death, which he had witnessed. On returning to his priory he had felt more deeply the need of reformation. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘how wretched is the state of the Church! Destitute of teachers competent to teach her, she finds herself kept far away from the Holy Scriptures,[136] which would lead her into all truth.’ Alesius gave utterance at the same time to the love which he felt even for the persecutors. ‘I do not hate the bishops,’ he said; ‘I do not hate any of the religious orders; but I tremble to see Christ’s doctrine buried under thick darkness, and pious folk subjected to horrible tortures. May all learn what power religion displays in men’s souls, by examining with care its divine sources.’[137] The death of Hamilton was day after day the subject of the canons’ conversation, and Alesius steadily refused to condemn him.

The worthless Hepburn and his satellites could not endure this. They denounced Alesius to the archbishop as a man who had embraced the faith for which Hamilton had been burnt, and they added that other canons seemed likely to take the same path. In order to ascertain the sentiments of the young man, the primate resolved to lay a snare for him; and when a provincial synod met at St. Andrews, he appointed Alesius to preach the sermon at its opening. Alesius entered the pulpit, and, while avoiding anything which might uselessly offend his hearers, he brought forward the doctrines of the truth, and boldly urged the clergy to give an example of holy living, and not to be stumbling-blocks to the faithful by scandalous licentiousness.

HIS IMPRISONMENT.

As they went out of the church, many expressed approval. The archbishop was grave, and did not say a word; but Hepburn, a proud, violent, and domineering man, whose shameless connexions, says Bayle,[138] were known to everybody, thought that Alesius meant to point him out and to excite his superiors against him, and he resolved to take vengeance on him. His fears were not unfounded. The discourse of Alesius had impressed the best men among the canons, and these, convinced of the necessity of putting an end to public scandals, joined together, and decided to carry to the king a complaint against the prior. Hepburn was immediately informed of their purpose, and, being constitutionally more fit for a soldier than for a canon, he took some armed men and entered suddenly into the hall in which the conference was held, to the great astonishment of the assembly. ‘Seize that man!’ said he to his men-at-arms, pointing to Alesius. The young canon begged the prior to keep his temper; but at these words the proud Hepburn, no longer master of himself, drew his sword, advanced towards Alesius, and was going to attack him, when two canons thrust themselves in front of their chief, and turned the blow aside.[139] The impetuous prelate, however, was not pacified, and, calling his men to his aid, he followed up Alesius, in order to strike him. The latter, in confusion and terror, finding himself within an inch of death, fell at the prior’s feet, and implored him not to shed innocent blood. Hepburn, to show his contempt for him, would not honor him so much as to pierce him with his sword, but gave him several kicks, and this with such force that the poor canon fainted away, and lay stretched on the floor before his enemy.[140] When he came to himself, the fierce prior ordered the soldiers to take him to prison, as well as the other canons; and they were all cast into a foul and unwholesome dungeon.

These deeds of violence were noised abroad in the whole city, and men’s feelings were divided between contempt and horror. Some of the nobles, however, who had esteemed Hamilton, were profoundly indignant; and they betook themselves to the king, and implored him to check the intolerable tyranny of the prior. The young king gave orders that all the canons should be set at liberty, and kindly added, that ‘he would go himself and deliver them with his own hand if he did not know that the place in which they were confined was infected with the plague.’[141] The prior obeyed the royal command, but only in part; he had Alesius thrust into a place that was fouler still.[142] And now he was alone; had no longer a friend to clasp his hand; saw only hostile faces. He knew that God was with him; but the sufferings inflicted on him by the cruel prior, the filth, the bad smells, the vermin that began to prey on him, the dark and perpetual night which filled that frightful sink, endangered his life. It was known in the city that he was ill; it was even reported one day that he was dead. James V. had the prior of St. Augustine’s called before him, and commanded him to liberate Alesius. The hypocritical prior swore by the saints that the canon was free; and returning immediately to the priory, he gave orders to bring out of the frightful dungeon the wretched man, who had languished there for twenty days. Alesius came out, covered with filth, and horrible to look on.[143] It was some comfort to him to once more see the light of day. Some of the servants took him; they put off his filthy garments, washed him carefully, and then put on him clean and even elegant clothes.[144] Thus attired, the victim was led before Hepburn, who forbade him to tell anyone how he had been treated. The prior then summoned the city magistrates, and showing them, with an air of triumph, Alesius, clean and well dressed, said—‘There is the man who is reported to be kept in prison by me, and even to be dead. Go, sirs, and give the lie to these calumnies.’ The wretch added to his cruelty, falsehood, stratagem, and shamelessness.

The magistrates then turning with kind looks to the prisoner, required him in the king’s name to tell the whole truth; and Alesius related the shameful treatment which he had suffered. The prior, embarrassed, could not deny the fact, but assured the provost and his colleagues that from that moment the prisoner was and would remain free; on which the council withdrew. The door had hardly closed before the enraged prior loaded Alesius with reproaches, and ordered him to be taken back to prison. A year passed, and neither king nor magistrate had snatched from that savage beast the prey on which he set his mind. In vain was it that Alesius had his complaint laid before the archbishop; the latter replied that he had noticed in his discourse a leaning to Lutheranism, and that he deserved the penalty which had fallen on him. His deliverance seemed impossible.

ALESIUS AGAIN IMPRISONED.

One day, however, it became known in the monastery that the prior was going out, and would be absent for several days. The canons, immediately hastening to their unhappy friend, took him out of the prison, conducted him into the open air, and paid him the most affectionate attentions. By degrees his strength was restored; he took courage, and one day he undertook to perform divine service at the altar. But this act of devotion was suddenly interrupted. The prior came back sooner than he was expected; he entered the church, and saw Alesius officiating, and the chapter around him. The blood rose to his face, and, without the slightest hesitation about interrupting divine service, he ordered the prisoner to be carried off from the altar, and again cast into his foul dungeon.[145] The canons, scandalized at this order, rose from their stalls, and represented to their superior that it was not lawful to interrupt the worship. Hepburn then allowed Alesius to go on with the service; but as soon as it was finished, he had him again confined in the place from which his colleagues had rescued him.

In order to prevent the canons taking such liberties again, the prior appointed as keeper of the prison one John Hay, a cruel and fanatical priest, a man who would servilely carry out his master’s orders. The canons, friends of Alesius, had no doubt that the prior had given the office to that scoundrel with the intention of making away with the prisoner. They said to one another, that if they did not bring about his escape immediately, his life would be taken. The same day, before Hay had entered upon his office, the first shades of night had scarcely spread their veil over the ancient city when a few of them bent their way secretly to the dungeon. They succeeded, though not without difficulty, in penetrating to the place where the prisoner lay, and told him that Hay had been named his keeper, and that consequently he had nothing to look for but horrible tortures and certain death. They added, that the king being absent, the opportunity would assuredly be taken to get rid of him, as it had been in Hamilton’s case; and that he could therefore only save his life by taking flight and quitting Scotland.[146] Alesius was in amazement; to forsake his country and his friends seemed to him an extreme course. He proposed to go first to those with whom he was most closely connected, to take counsel with them as to what he ought to do. ‘Take care not to do that,’ replied the canons; ‘leave the country immediately without a word to anybody, for as soon as the prior finds that you are no longer in your dungeon, he will send horsemen to seize you on the road, or to carry you off from your friends’ house.’

HIS LOVE FOR SCOTLAND.

Alesius could not make up his mind to follow this advice. The thought of bidding adieu to Scotland, perhaps for ever, filled him with the keenest sorrow.[147] His dream had been to consecrate all his energies to the salvation of his fellow-citizens, and to do good even to those who wronged him; and now he was to be condemned never again to see Scottish faces, Edinburgh, its valleys, its lofty houses, its narrow streets, its castle, Holyrood, the fertile plains of Caledonia, its low hills covered with pasture, its heaths wrapped in mists, and its marsh-lands, monotonous and yet poetic, which a gloomy sea environs with its waters, now mournful and still, now agitated by the violence of the winds. All these he must quit, though he had loved them from childhood. ‘Ah!’ exclaimed he, ‘what is there more dear to souls happily born than their native land?’[148] But presently he corrected himself. ‘The Church,’ said he, ‘is the Christian’s country far more than the place which gave him birth.[149] Assuredly the name of one’s native land is very dear, but that of the Church is dearer still.’ He perceived that if he did not go away, it was all over with him; and that if he did go away, he might contribute, even from afar, towards the triumph of the truth in the land of his fathers, and possibly might return thither at a later day. ‘Go!’ repeated the noble canons, who would fain save at any cost a life so precious; ‘all honest people desire it.’ ‘Well,’ said Alesius, ‘I bend to the yoke of necessity; I will go.’ The canons, who had everything ready, immediately got him secretly out of the priory, conducted him beyond the city, and gave him the money needful for his voyage. These generous men, less advanced than their friend in knowledge of the Scriptures, perceived that by his departure they would lose an inestimable treasure; but they thought rather of him than of themselves—they strove to dissipate his melancholy, and they called to his recollection the illustrious men and the saints who had been compelled, like him, to fly far from the wrath of tyrants. At length the solemn moment of farewell was come, and all of them, deeply affected at the thought that perhaps they would never meet again, burst into tears.[150] They paid the tribute due to nature; for, as Calvin says, ‘The perfection of the faithful does not lie in throwing off every affection, but in cherishing them for worthy causes.’[151]

It was midnight. Alesius had to pass on foot across the north of Fifeshire, then to cross the Firth of Tay and go on to Dundee, whence a ship was on the point of sailing. He set out alone, and travelled onwards in the thick darkness.[152] He directed his steps towards the Tay, having the sea at a certain distance on his right; traversed Leuchars, and arrived at Newport, opposite Dundee, where he had to take a boat to cross the Firth. During this night-journey he was beset with the saddest thoughts. ‘Oh!’ said he to himself, ‘what a life full of bitterness is offered me—to forsake one’s kinsfolk and one’s country;[153] to be exposed to the greatest dangers so long as the vessel is not reached; to fly into foreign lands, where no hospitable roof is ready to receive me; to have in prospect all the ills of exile; to live among foreign peoples, where I have not a single friend; to be called to converse with men speaking unknown languages; to wander to and fro on the Continent at a time when so many vagabonds, driven from their own country for fanatical or seditious opinions, are justly looked on with suspicion. Oh! what anxieties, what griefs.’ His soul sank within him; but having lifted up his eyes to Christ with full trust, he was suddenly consoled, and after a rude conflict, he came victorious out of the trial.[154]

His fears, however, were only too well founded. No sooner had the violent Hepburn learnt the flight of the prisoner than he assembled some horsemen, set off in pursuit of him,[155] and reached Dundee, from which port he knew that a vessel was sailing for Germany. Alesius was expecting every moment to see him appear. ‘How shameful in a dignitary of the Church,’ said he, ‘is this man’s cruelty! What rage moved him when he drew his sword against me! To what sufferings has he exposed me, and with what perils has he threatened me! It is a complete tragedy!...’

FLIGHT OF ALESIUS.

In the morning Alesius entered the town of Dundee. Fearing that, in case of being arrested, he should fall into the hands of the prior, he went immediately on board the ship, which was going to sail; and the captain, who was a German and probably a Protestant, received him very kindly.[156]

The prior and the horsemen, who had set out from St. Andrews, arrived a little later at Dundee, and, alighting from their horses, began to search for Alesius. He was nowhere to be found; the vessel had already cleared the port. The prior, enraged to find that his prey had escaped him, must needs vent his wrath on some one. ‘It is you,’ said he to a citizen well known for his attachment to the Reformation, ‘it is you who furnished the canon with the means of escape.’ This man denied the charge, and then the provost or mayor, Sir James Scrymgeour of Dornlope, avowed to the prior that he would with all his heart have provided a vessel for Alesius; and, he added, ‘I would have given him the necessary funds for the purpose of rescuing him from the perils to which your cruelty exposed him.’ The Scrymgeours, whose chief was the provost of Dundee, formed a numerous and powerful family, connected with several other noble houses of the realm. They were not the only family among the aristocracy which was favorable to the Gospel; several illustrious houses had from the first welcomed the Reformation—the Kirkaldys and the Melvilles of Fifeshire, the Scrymgeours and the Erskines of Angus, the Forresters and Sandilands of Stirlingshire and the Lothians, and others besides. The prior, who had not at all looked for such a remonstrance as he had just received, went back, annoyed and furious, to St. Andrews.

While the ship on which Alesius had embarked sailed towards France, the refugee felt his own weakness, and found strength in the Lord. ‘O God,’ said he, ‘thou dost put the oil of thy compassion only into the vessel of a steadfast and filial trust.[157] I must assuredly have gone down to the gates of hell unless all my hope had been in thy mercy alone.’ The ship had not long been on her way when a westerly wind, blowing violently, carried her eastward, drove her into the Sound, and made it necessary to go ashore at Malmoe, in Sweden, in order to refit her. Alesius was very lovingly welcomed there by the Scots who had settled in the town.[158] At length he reached France, traversed part of the coast of that kingdom,[159] then betook himself to Cologne, where he was favorably received by archbishop Hermann, count of Wied.

CHAPTER VII.

CONFESSORS OF THE GOSPEL AND MARTYRS ARE MULTIPLIED IN SCOTLAND.

(End of 1531 to 1534.)

The bishops of Scotland appeared to triumph. Hamilton was dead, Alesius in exile, and not one evangelical voice was any longer heard in the realm. They now turned their thoughts to the destruction of that proud aristocracy which assumed that the functions of the state belonged to the nobles and not to the priests. The estates of the earl of Crawford had already been confiscated; the earls of Argyle and Bothwell and several others had been imprisoned, and insults had been offered to the earl of Murray, Lord Maxwell, Sir James Hamilton, and their friends.[160] The archbishop of Glasgow, chancellor of Scotland, went still further; he deprived the nobles of their ancient jurisdiction, and set up in its place a College of Justice, composed exclusively of ecclesiastics. The nobles thought now only of delivering Scotland from the yoke of the clergy, and determined to invite the aid of Henry VIII. Some of them were beginning even to feel interested in those humble evangelical believers who were, like themselves, the object of the priests’ hatred. This interest was one day to contribute to the triumph of the Reformation. It was resolved that the earl of Bothwell should open negotiations with Henry VIII., and this at the very time that that prince was separating from Rome. This alliance might lead a long way.

BOTHWELL AND NORTHUMBERLAND.

The earl of Northumberland was then at Newcastle, charged by the King of England to watch over affairs in the north. It was to him that Bothwell addressed himself. Northumberland having referred to Henry on the subject, it was agreed that the two earls should meet by night at Dilston, a place almost equally distant from Newcastle and from the Scottish frontier. At the mid-hour of the long night of December 21, 1531, Bothwell, accompanied by three of his friends, arrived at the appointed place, where Northumberland was awaiting him.[161] They entered immediately on the conference. The English lord was struck with the intelligence, the acquirements, and the refined manners of Bothwell. ‘Verily,’ said he to Henry VIII., ‘I have never in my life met a lord so agreeable and so handsome.’ Bothwell, angered by the pride of the priests, reported their conduct with respect to Angus, Argyle, and Murray. ‘They kept me, too, confined in Edinburgh Castle for six months,’ said he, ‘and but for the intervention of my friends they would have put me to death. I know that such a fate is still impending over me.’ Bothwell added, that if the King of England would deliver the Scottish nobles from the evils which they had reason to dread, he himself (Bothwell) was ready to join Henry VIII. with one thousand gentlemen and six thousand men-at-arms. ‘We will crown him in a little while,’ he added, ‘in the town of Edinburgh.’[162] The enraged nobles were actually giving themselves up to strange fancies: according to their view, the only remedy for the ills of their country was the union of Scotland with England under the sceptre of Henry VIII. Scotland would in that case have submitted to a reform at the king’s hand; but she was reserved for other destinies, and her reform was to proceed from the people, and to be effected by the Word of God.

The King of England was in no lack of motives for intervention in Scotland. James V. had just concluded an alliance for a hundred years with Charles V., the mortal enemy of Henry VIII., and had even asked for the hand of the emperor’s sister, the ex-queen of Hungary. This princess had rejected the match, and the emperor had proposed to James his niece Dorothea, daughter of the King of Denmark.

Bothwell was able even to tell Northumberland, in this night-conference, of matters graver still. A secret ambassador from Charles V., said he, Peter von Rosenberg, has recently been at Edinburgh and, in a long conversation which he had with the king in his private apartments, has promised him that the emperor would put him in a position, before Easter, to assume the title of prince of England and duke of York.[163] The Roman party, despairing of Henry VIII., were willing to transmit the crown to his nephew, the King of Scotland. Bothwell added that James, as he left the conference, met the chancellor of the kingdom and several nobles, and made haste to communicate to them the magnificent promise of Charles V. The chancellor contented himself with saying, ‘Pray God I may live to see the day on which the Pope will confirm it.’ The king replied, ‘Only let the emperor act; he will labor strenuously for us.’ It was not James V., but his grandson, who was to ascend the throne of the Tudors.

The project formed by the Scottish nobles of placing Scotland under the sceptre of England was not so easy to carry out as they imagined. The priests, who supposed that they had surmounted the dangers proceeding from reform, undertook to remove in like manner those with which they were threatened by the nobility. But they were mistaken when they believed that the fire kindled by the Word of God was extinguished. Flames shot up suddenly even in places where it was least of all expected to see them.

ALEXANDER SEATON.

A monk of the Dominican order, the order so devoted to the Inquisition, Alexander Seaton, confessor to the king—a man of lofty stature, downright, ready-witted and bold even to audacity[164]—was held in great esteem at the court. The state of the Church profoundly grieved him, and therefore, having been appointed to preach in Lent (1532) in the cathedral of St. Andrews, he resolved courageously to avow in that Scottish Rome the heavenly doctrine which was making exiles and martyrs. Preaching before a large congregation, he said—‘Jesus Christ is the end of the law, and no one is able by his works to satisfy divine justice. A living faith which lays hold of the mercy of God in Christ, can alone obtain for the sinner the remission of sins. But for how many years has God’s law, instead of being faithfully taught, been darkened by the tradition of men?’ People were astonished at this discourse: some wondered why he did not say a word about pilgrimages and other meritorious works; but the priests themselves were afraid to lay a complaint against him. ‘He is confessor to the king,’ they said, ‘and enjoys the favor both of prince and people.’[165]

In the absence of Seaton, after Lent, the archbishop and the clergy took courage, condemned the doctrine which he had preached, and appointed another Dominican to refute him. Seaton immediately returned from Dundee, whither he had gone, had the cathedral bells rung, and, ascending the pulpit, repeated with more energy and clearness still what he had previously said. Then, recalling to mind all that a bishop ought to be according to St. Paul, he asked, where are such bishops to be found in Scotland? The primate, when informed of this discourse, summoned him before him, and rebuked him for having asserted that the bishops were only dumb dogs. Seaton replied that it was an unfounded accusation. ‘Your answer pleases me well,’ exclaimed Beatoun. But the witnesses confirmed their deposition. ‘These are liars,’ said again the king’s confessor to the archbishop; ‘consider what ears these asses have, who cannot decern Paul, Isaiah, Zechariah and Malachi, and friar Alexander Seaton. In very deed, my lord, I said that Paul says it behoves a bishop to be a teacher. Isaiah said that they that fed not the flock are dumb dogs. And Zechariah says, they are idle pastors. I of my own head affirmed nothing, but declared what the Spirit of God before had pronounced.’

SEATON’S FLIGHT.

Beatoun did not hesitate: this bold preacher was evidently putting to his mouth the trumpet of Hamilton and Alesius. The primate undertook to obtain authority from the king to proceed against his confessor, and it was an easier task than he imagined. Seaton, like John the Baptist, had no dread of incurring the king’s displeasure, and had rebuked him for his licentiousness. James had said nothing at the time, thinking that the confessor was only doing his duty. But when he saw the archbishop denouncing Seaton, ‘Ah,’ said this young prince, who was given up to a loose life,[166] ‘I know more than you do of his audacity;’ and from that time he showed great coolness towards Seaton. The latter perceiving what fate awaited him, quitted the kingdom, and took refuge at Berwick. It was about two years after the Lent sermon preached by him in 1532.

He did not remain idle. He had a last duty to discharge to his master the king. ‘The bishops of your kingdom,’ he wrote to him, ‘oppose our teaching the Gospel of Christ. I offer to present myself before your majesty, and to convince the priests of error.’[167] As the king made him no answer, Seaton went to London, where he became chaplain to the duke of Suffolk, brother-in-law of Henry VIII., and preached eloquently to large audiences.

The King of England liked well enough to receive the friends of the Gospel who were banished from Scotland. One priest, more enlightened than the rest, Andrew Charteris, had called his colleagues children of the devil; and he said aloud—‘If anyone observes their cunning and their falsehood, and accuses them of impurity, they immediately accuse him of heresy. If Christ himself were in Scotland, our priestly fathers would heap on him more ignominy than the Jews themselves in old time did.’ Henry desired to see the man, talked with him at great length, and was much pleased with him. ‘Verily,’ said the king to him, ‘it is a great pity that you were ever made a priest.’[168]

The clergy had now got rid of Hamilton, Seaton, and Alesius; but they were nevertheless disquieted because they knew that the Holy Scriptures were in Scotland. Notice was therefore given in every parish that ‘it is forbidden to sell or to read the New Testament.’ All copies found in the shops were ordered to be burnt.[169] Alesius, who was in Germany at that time, was greatly afflicted, and resolved to speak.

LETTER OF ALESIUS.

‘I hear, sire,’ he wrote to the king, ‘that the bishops are driving souls away from the oracles of Christ. Could the Turks do anything worse? Would morality exist in independence of the Holy Scriptures?[170] Would religion itself be anything else than a certain discipline of public manners? That is the doctrine of Epicurus; but what will become of the Church if the bishops propagate Epicurean dogmas? God ordains that we should hear the Son, not as a doctor who philosophizes on the theory of morals, but as a prophet who reveals holy things unknown to the world. If the bishops promote the infliction of the severest penalties on those who hear his word, the knowledge of Jesus Christ will become extinct, and the people will take up pagan opinions.[171]

‘Most serene king, resist these impious counsels! Those who are in the fulness of age, infancy, and the generation to come, unite in imploring you to do so. We are punished, we are put to death.... Eurybiades of Sparta, commander-in-chief, having in the course of a debate raised his staff against Themistocles while forbidding him to speak, the Athenian replied, “Strike, but hear!” We shall say the same. We shall speak, for the Gospel alone can strengthen souls amidst the infinite perils of the present time.’

Neither king nor priests replied to the Letter of Alesius; but a famous German, Cochlæus, the opponent of Luther, undertook to induce James V. to pay no attention to that discourse. ‘Sire,’ he wrote to him, ‘the calamities which the New Testaments disseminated by Luther have brought down upon Germany are so great, that the bishops, in turning their sheep away from that deadly pasture, have shown themselves to be faithful shepherds. Incalculable sums have been thrown away on the printing of a hundred thousand copies of that book. Now, what advantage have its readers drawn from it, unless it be an advantage to be cast into prison, to be banished, and made to suffer other tribulations? A decree is not enough, sire; it is necessary to act. The bishop of Treves has had the New Testaments thrown into the Rhine, and with them the booksellers who sold them. This example has frightened others, and happily so, for that book is the Gospel of Satan, and not of Jesus Christ.’[172] This was the model proposed to King James.

At the same time the Romish party was endeavoring to embroil Scotland with England, and James was already engaging in several skirmishes. One day, under the pretext of the hunt, he threw himself, with ‘a small company’ of three hundred persons, on the estates the possession of which was disputed by his uncle.[173] Shortly afterwards, four hundred Scots invaded the Marches (frontier districts) at sunrise, and were carrying off what they found there. Northumberland repulsed them, and put to death the prisoners which fell into his hands. The Scots took and burnt some English towns; the English invaded Scotland, and ravaged its towns and country districts. The King of Scotland, intimidated, applied to the pope and the King of France, and cried out for aid with all his might. And then, in order to please at the same time the priests, the pope, and Francis I., he took the advice of Cochlæus; with the exception, that in Scotland the fire at the stake was substituted for the waters of the Rhine.

HENRY FORREST.

A young monk, named Henry Forrest, who was in the Benedictine monastery at Linlithgow, a man equally quick in his sympathies and his antipathies, had been touched by Hamilton’s words, and uttered everywhere aloud his regret for the death of that young kinsman of the king, calling him a martyr. This monk was presently convicted of a crime more enormous still: he was a reader of the New Testament. The archbishop had him imprisoned at St. Andrews. One day a friar (sent by the prelate) came to him for the purpose, he said, of administering consolation; and offering to confess him, he succeeded by crafty questions in leading the young Benedictine to tell him all he thought about Hamilton’s doctrines. Forrest was immediately condemned to be delivered over to the secular authorities to be put to death, and a clerical assembly was called together for the purpose of degrading him. The young friend of the Gospel had hardly passed the door where the assembly was sitting, when, discovering the archbishop and the priests drawn up in a circle before him, he became aware of what awaited him, and cried out with a voice full of contempt, ‘Fie on falsehood! fie on false friars, revealers of confession!’[174] When one of the clerks came up to him to degrade him, the Benedictine, weary of so much perfidy, exclaimed, ‘Take from me not only your own orders but also your own baptism.’ He meant by that, says an historian, the superstitious practices which Rome has added to the institutions of the Lord. These words provoked the assembly still more. ‘We must burn him,’ said the primate, ‘in order to terrify the others.’ A simple-minded and candid man who was by the side of Beatoun said to him in a tone of irony, ‘My lord, if you burn him, take care that it be done in a cave, for the smoke of Hamilton’s pile infected with heresy all who caught the scent of it.’

This advice was not taken. To the northward of St. Andrews, in the counties of Forfar and Angus, there were a good many people who loved the New Testament which was come from Germany. There still exist in that district a village named Luthermoor, Luther’s torrent, which falls into the North Esk, Luther’s Bridge, and Luther’s Mill.[175] Forrest’s persecutors determined to erect his funeral pile in such a situation that the population of Forfar and Angus might see the flames,[176] and thus learn the danger which threatened them if they should fall into Protestantism. The pile was therefore placed to the north of the abbey church of St. Andrews, and the fire was visible in those districts of the north which were afterwards to bear Luther’s name. Henry Forrest was Scotland’s second martyr.

DAVID STRAITON.

In the same neighborhood there soon after appeared one who was to be the third to lay down his life for the Reformation in Scotland. A small country seat, situated on the sea-coast near the mouth of the North Esk, was inhabited by one of the Straitons of Lauriston, a family which had held the estate of that name from the sixth century. The members of this family were for the most part distinguished for their tall stature, their bodily strength, and their energy of character. David, a younger son (the eldest resided in Lauriston Castle), a man worthy of his ancestors, was of rude manners and obstinate temper. He displayed great contempt for books, especially for religious books, and found his chief pleasure in launching his boat on the sea, giving the sails to the wind, casting his nets, and struggling hand to hand with the winds and the waves. He had soon to engage in struggles of another kind. The prior of St. Andrews, Patrick Hepburn, afterwards bishop of Murray, a very avaricious man, hearing that David had great success in his fishing, demanded tithe of his fish. ‘Tell your master,’ said the proud gentleman, ‘that if he wants to have it, he may come and take it on the spot.’ From that time, every day as he drew up his nets, he exclaimed to the fishermen, ‘Pay the prior of St. Andrews his tithe,’ and the men would straightway throw every tenth fish into the sea.

When the prior of St. Andrews heard of this strange method of satisfying his claim, he ordered the vicar of Eglesgreg to go to take the fish. The vicar went; but as soon as the rough gentleman saw the priest and his men set to work without ceremony on their part, he cast the fish to him, and so sharply that some of them fell into the sea.[177]

The prior then instituted proceedings against Straiton for the crime of heresy. Never had a council applied that name to a man’s method of paying his tithe. No matter; the word heretic at that time inspired such terror that the stout-hearted gentleman began to give way; his pride was humbled, and, confessing his sins, he felt the need of a forgiving God. He sought out therefore all those who could tell him of the Gospel or could read it to him, for he could not read himself.

Not far from his abode was Dun Castle, whose lord, John Erskine, provost of Montrose, a descendant of the earls of Mar, had attended several universities in Scotland and abroad, and had been converted to the evangelical faith.

‘God,’ says Knox, ‘had miraculously enlightened him.’ His castle, in which the words of prophets and apostles were heard, was ever open to those who were athirst for truth; and thus the evangelical Christians of the neighborhood had frequent meetings there. Erskine detected the change which was taking place in the soul of his rude neighbor; he went to see him, conversed with him, and exhorted him to change his life. Straiton soon became a regular attendant at the meetings in the castle, ‘and he was,’ says Knox, ‘transformed as by a miracle.’[178]

His nephew, the young baron of Lauriston, possessed a New Testament. Straiton frequently went to the castle to hear portions of the Gospels read. One day the uncle and his nephew went out together, wandered about in the neighborhood, and then retired into a lonely place to read the Gospels. The young laird chose the tenth chapter of St. Matthew. Straiton listened as attentively as if it were to himself that the Lord addressed the discourse which is there reported. When they came to this declaration of Jesus Christ, ‘Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven,’ Straiton, affected and startled, fell on his knees, stretched his hands upwards, and turned for a long time a humble and earnest gaze towards heaven, but without speaking the while; he appeared to be in an ecstasy.[179] At last, no longer able to restrain the feelings which crowded on him, he exclaimed—‘I have been sinful, O Lord, and thou wouldst be only just wert thou to withhold thy grace from me! Nevertheless, for the sake of thy mercy, suffer not the dread of pain or of death to lead me ever to deny thee or thy truth.’[180] Thenceforward he set himself to serve zealously the master whose mighty love he had felt. The world appeared to him like a vast sea, full of movement, on which men are ever rudely tossed until they have entered into the haven of the Gospel. The fisherman became a fisher of men. He exhorted his friends and acquaintances to seek God, and he replied to the priests with firmness. On one occasion, when they urged him to do some pious works which deliver from purgatory, he answered, ‘I know of no other purgatory than Christ’s passion and the tribulations of this life.’ Straiton was carried off to Edinburgh, and cast into prison.

There was another Scotchman, Norman Gourlay, who after taking holy orders had travelled on the continent, and had there been enlightened by the word of the Gospel. Convinced that ‘marriage is honorable in all,’ Gourlay had married on his return to Scotland; and when a priest reminded him of the prohibition by Rome, ‘The pope,’ replied he, ‘is no bishop, but an Antichrist, and he has no jurisdiction in Scotland.’

On August 26, 1534, these two servants of God were led into a hall of Holyrood Abbey. The judges were seated, and with them the king, who, appareled in red from head to foot, seemed to be there for the purpose of assisting them. James V. pressed these two confirmed Christians to abjure their doctrines. ‘Recant; burn your bill,’[181] he said to them; but Straiton and Gourlay chose rather to be burnt themselves. The king, affected and giving way, would fain have pardoned them; but the priests declared that he had no authority to do so, since these people were condemned by the Church. In the afternoon of August 27 a huge pile was lit on the summit of Calton Hill, in order that the flames might be visible to a great distance; and the fire devoured these two noble Christians. If the Reform was afterwards so strong in Scotland it was because the seed was holy.

Enough however was not done yet. All these heresies, it was thought, proceed from Hamilton; his family must therefore be extirpated from the Scottish soil. But Sir James, a good-natured man, an upright magistrate and a lover of the Gospel, was for all that not in the humor to let himself be burnt like his brother. So, having received one day an order to appear before the tribunal, he addressed himself immediately to the king, who had him privately told not to appear. Sir James therefore quitted the kingdom; he was then condemned, excommunicated, banished, and deprived of his estates, and he lived for nearly ten years in London in the utmost distress.

TRIAL OF CATHERINE HAMILTON.

His sister Catherine was both a warm-hearted Scotchwoman and a decided Huguenot. She would not make her escape, but appeared at Holyrood in the presence of the ecclesiastical tribunal and of the king himself. ‘By what means,’ they said to her, ‘do you expect to be saved?’—‘By faith in the Saviour,’ she replied, ‘and not by works.’ Then one of the canonists, Master John Spence, said at great length—‘It is necessary to distinguish between various kinds of works. In the first place, there are works of congruity, secondly, there are works of condignity. The works of the just are of this latter category, and they merit life ex condigno. There are also pious works; then works of supererogation;’ and he explained in scholastic terms what all these expressions meant. These strange words sounded in Catherine’s ears like the noise of a false-bass (faux-bourdon). Wearied with this theological babbling, she got excited, and exclaimed—‘Works here, works there.... What signify all the works?... There is one thing alone which I know with certainty, and that is that no work can save me, except the work of Christ my Saviour.’ The doctor sat amazed and made no answer, while the king strove in vain to hide a fit of laughter. He was anxious to save Catherine, and made a sign for her to come to him; he then entreated her to declare to the tribunal that she respected the Church. Catherine, who had never had a thought of setting herself in rebellion against the higher powers, gave the king leave to say what he wished, and withdrew first into England, then to France. She probably entered the family of her husband,[182] who, during his lifetime, was a French officer in the suite of the duke of Albany.

But these punishments and banishments did not put an end to the storm. Several other evangelical Christians were also obliged at that time to leave Scotland. Gawin Logie, a canon of St. Andrews, and principal regent of St. Leonard’s College, at which Patrick Hamilton had exercised so powerful an influence, had diffused scriptural principles among the students to such an extent that people were accustomed to say, when they would make you understand that anyone was an evangelical Christian, ‘He has drunk at the well of St. Leonard’s.’ Logie quitted Scotland in 1534. Johnston, an Edinburgh advocate, Fife, a friend of Alesius, M’Alpine, and several others had to go into exile at the same time. The last-named, known on the continent by the name of Maccabæus, won the favor of the King of Denmark, and became a professor at the university of Copenhagen.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE KING OF SCOTLAND BREAKS WITH ENGLAND, AND ALLIES HIMSELF WITH FRANCE AND THE GUISES.

(1534–1539.)

BREAK WITH ENGLAND.

Notwithstanding the literary and liberal pretensions of Francis I., the ultramontane spirit seemed secure of a triumph in France. There doubtless existed freer and holier aspirations, but certain of the bishops were more popish than the pope, and kings found it convenient to show themselves very indulgent to the licentiousness of the clergy, provided that they in return would lend a hand in support of their despotism. The priests of Scotland therefore redoubled their efforts to make a breach between James and his uncle of England, and to ally him with the eldest daughter of the papacy.

Henry VIII., who received into his realm many of the exiles who were driven from their own country, was troubled at seeing his nephew throw himself into the arms of the Roman pontiff. It was for the interest of England that Scotland should not take a course opposed to her own: the whole of Great Britain ought to cast off the authority of the pope at the same time. The Tudor, impatient to reach this end, conceived the project of giving his daughter Mary in marriage to the King of Scotland; and in order to bring about by degrees a reconciliation, he determined to send Lord William Howard to Scotland. To this intent he had instructions drawn up in full detail to the effect following:[183]—First after your arrival at the court of the king my nephew, you will offer on our part the most friendly greetings, you will thank him for his noble present of falcons, and you will assure him that the ties of blood which unite us lead me to rejoice at every piece of good fortune that befalls him. You will then practise with the lord treasurer by some means to get you the measure of the king’s person, and you will cause to be made for him the richest and most elegant garments possible, by the tailor whom you will have at hand for that intent. Then you will tell him that I am greatly desirous to have conference with him.

Henry VIII., full of hatred for the papacy, and anxious to see other kingdoms strengthen his position by following his example, urged his nearest neighbors to found, as he had done, national churches acknowledging no other head than the king. He had seen his endeavors fail in France, and was all the more desirous of succeeding in Scotland. As uncle to the king, the task seemed easy to him. To accomplish it he was resolved to use all means, and among others he sought to gain over the king by fine clothes made after the London fashion. He sent to him at the same time some books against the usurped authority of the pope.

DR. BARLOW’S EMBASSY

In October, Dr. Barlow, prior of Bisham, one of the king’s councillors, ‘a man sufficiently instructed,’ wrote Henry to James, ‘in the specialities of certain great and weighty causes,’[184] arrived in Scotland, and the queen-dowager Margaret procured him a private conversation with her son.[185] The pope’s partisans at once took the alarm, and conjured James not to read the books which Henry VIII. had sent to him; they depicted the unheard-of dangers to which he would expose his person, his crown, and his kingdom by following his uncle’s example. They had the best of it, and James commanded a reply to be written to Cromwell, that assuredly no means would be neglected of strengthening the bonds of friendship between the two sovereigns; but that, in Scotland, there could be no agreement with the King of England ‘in the opinions concerning the authority of the pope and kirkmen.’[186] ‘Here be,’ wrote Barlow to Cromwell, ‘plenty of priests, sundry sorts of religions, multitudes of monks, flocking companies of friars, yet among them all so many is there not a few, no not one, that sincerely preacheth Christ.’

‘It shall be no more dyspleasant for me to depart,’ he wrote on May 23, 1536, ‘than it was for Lot to pass out of Sodom.’[187]

Henry was not discouraged, and he sent Lord William Howard a second time, in February, 1535. At a solemn session which was held at Holyrood with great pomp, Howard delivered to James V., at one and the same time, the order of the Garter, which Charles V., Francis I., and King Ferdinand had already received, and a declaration touching the ecclesiastical supremacy. The king accepted the order with respect, and handed over the declaration to his bishops to do what they wished with it.[188] In vain had Henry given James a glimpse of the prospect of sitting on the throne of England by marrying his daughter Mary; the priests, and especially Beatoun, got the proposals rejected, from which they anticipated nothing but evil. They represented to him the risk which he would run if he went to London and put his head at the disposal of so treacherous and cruel a prince; and what admiration posterity would cherish for him, if at the time when all Europe was threatening the Church, he should remain true to the faith of his forefathers.

Among the Scottish people there were earnest aspirations after the Gospel: but in that country, as in France, the priesthood and the government forcibly repressed them. The more the state separated itself from the pope in the south of Britain, the more it clung to him in the north. The king, now become the direct instrument of the clergy, required the parliament to check the progress which the Bible seemed to be making in Scotland; and on June 8 this body, adding severity to the former laws, enacted that whosoever possessed a New Testament should deliver it to his bishop under pain of confiscation and imprisonment, and that all discussion about religious opinions was prohibited. It gave permission, however, to clerks of the schools to read that book, in order that they might the more efficiently contend against its adherents. Many priests, monks, and students therefore read the New Testament; but this reading produced a quite contrary effect, for it led them to receive and to defend the Gospel. This could not but irritate the king and his priests, and make them feel still more the necessity of an alliance with some ultramontane power. The conversion of a Churchman who, through his family, was connected with the court, especially attracted their attention.

THOMAS FORREST.

In a small island in the Firth of Forth, not far from Edinburgh, stood the ancient abbey of St. Colme, occupied by Augustinian canons. Distinguished among them was the son of the master of the stables to King James IV. His name was Thomas Forrest, and he is not to be confounded with the Benedictine, Henry Forrest, of whom we have already spoken. A quarrel had broken out between the abbot and the canons; the latter, in order to support their claims, seized the deeds of foundation of the monastery. The abbot came in, scolded them sharply, recovered the volume, and gave them in its place an old folio of St. Augustine. The canons scornfully turned their backs on the book and went back to their cells.

Forrest, left alone, looked at the volume. A work of the great Augustine interested him. He took it into his cell, read it, and ere long was able to say, with the bishop of Hippo—‘That which the dispensation of works commands, is accomplished by the dispensation of grace. O happy and blessed book!’ he would often say, ‘God has made use of thee to enlighten my soul.’[189] St. Augustine led Forrest to the Gospel, and he was not long in making known to his brethren the treasure which he had found in the writings of this Father and in the New Testament. Aged men stopped their ears. ‘Alas,’ said the son of the king’s master-stabler, ‘the old bottles will not receive the new wine.’[190] The old canons complained to the abbot, and the abbot said to Forrest, ‘Look after your own salvation, but talk as other men do.’