|
| |
|
The Scottish Reformation
Chapter II.—The Wishart Period, a. d.
1543—1554.
Section 3. Renewal of Persecution—Appeal to the Nation by Alexander
Alesius. 1543—1544 |
|
The Regent was now to turn persecutor of his former
friends, and reversing St Paul's happier case, destroyer of the faith
which once he professed. He was not naturally cruel; he would have even
been pleased to avoid rekindling the flames of persecution; but he had
sold himself to the cardinal to obtain his support; he must now do the
Church's work, not his own; and Beaton was not the man to spare him the
humiliation and mortification of having to brand with
ignominy, and doom to death, the disciples of a faith which only a few
weeks before had been his own.
In a Parliament held at Edinburgh, in December, 1543,
the already enormous power of the cardinal, both civil and
ecclesiastical, was still further increased by his receiving the Great
Seal as Chancellor; an office which placed him at the head of the law
and judicature of the kingdom. And further, on the 15th of the same
month, the record of Parliament bears that "My lord governor caused to
be shown and proclaimed in Parliament to all Estates being there
gathered ; how there is great murmur that heretics more and more rise
and spread within this realm, sowing damnable opinions contrary to the
faith and laws of Holy Kirk, and to the acts and constitutions of the
realm; exhorting, therefore, all prelates and ordinaries, severally
within their own diocese and jurisdiction, to make inquisition after all
such manner of persons, and proceed against them according to the laws
of Holy Kirk. And my lord governor shall be ready at all times to do
therein what accords him of his office." The Regent is now plainly a
mere puppet in the hands of the cardinal, his mere tool and mouthpiece.
When before did ever such exhortations to prelates to push their cruel
inquisitions, and such ostentatious professions of readiness to support
them in their oppressive work, come from the lips of a Scottish ruler,
presiding in the midst of the great council of the nation % Truly
the prelates needed no such spurs to excite them to diligence in such
work. But Beaton might think some such harangue from Arran necessary to
make men believe that the man, who had aimed only a few months before to
break the arm of persecution, was now in earnest to strengthen it with
new vigour, and to provide for it new victims.
Thus, in a few short months, all was changed; not
only the whole political, but also the whole ecclesiastical policy of
the kingdom. The year 1543, which had opened with the brightest hopes
for truth and liberty, closed under the darkest shades of disappointment
and despondency. All good men had hoped to see the end of religious
oppression, and to witness the good beginning which had been made by the
Regent*s first Parliament in the work of Reformation, followed up by a
course of progressive improvement; but another persecution was now
imminent, and the hope of ecclesiastical reform was indefinitely
postponed. Many enlightened patriots, who saw clearly that a close union
with England was indispensable to the peace and prosperity of the
kingdom, had hailed the matrimonial treaty with Henry as the beginning
of a new epoch in the history of the two nations, and as the happy
solution of a problem which had awaited solution for centuries; but the
fickleness and the perfidy of one man had dashed to the ground the hope
of two kingdoms; the flame of war had again burst forth upon the
borders, and an invasion of the country from England by land and sea was
threatened in the ensuing spring. The state of the nation's affairs at
the opening of 1544, was pitiable indeed. The clergy chuckled at their
marvellous success, and the cardinal had reached the pinnacle of power;
but the country lay bleeding at their feet, under the wounds which they
had inflicted ; and the friends of the Gospel throughout the land
saw themselves menaced by a new reign of terror.
The festivities of Yule were no sooner over, than the
Regent and the cardinal, who had spent a merry Christmas in Stirling
Castle with the .Queen-Dowager, set off, on the 20th of January, on a
mission of persecution to Perth and Dundee. They were accompanied by the
Earl of Argyle as Lord Justiciary, and Sir John Campbell of Lundy, his
deputy; by Lord Bothwick, and several other nobles, and by the Bishops
of Dunblane and Orkney. They had made preparations more befitting a
campaign than the grave administration of ecclesiastical law; for they
took with them a large park of artillery, great and small, dragged by
eighty cart-horses, and conducted by twelve pioneers. The heretics of
the two towns must have mustered strong indeed, when their judges
prepared to meet them with such a display of unspiritual artillery. It
must have been expected that it might be necessary to lay siege
to the walls of Perth and Dundee, and force an entrance by cannon shot
What a striking proof of the powerful hold which the Reformation had got
upon the public mind in these two important communities !
When the Regent and cardinal arrived at Perth, they
found no use for their cannon and pioneers, for the peaceable burghers
made no opposition to their entrance; but they soon made ample work for
the gallows-tree and the halter. The story of the Martyrs of Perth is
one of the most cruel and tragical in the records of Scottish
martyrology, and has been told with touching minuteness in the histories
of the time; but we prefer to give it in a briefer form, as it occurs in
a letter of Alexander Alesius to Melancthon, written only a few months
after the event This letter is preserved in the City Library of Hamburgh,
and now, for the first time, sees the light It is dated the 23d of
April, 1544, from Leipzig, where Alesius was now settled as a Professor
of Theology.
"To the most famous and honoured man, Dominus Philip
Melancthon, his dearest preceptor. Alexander Alesius, S.D.
" . . . . Three days ago, there were here several
countrymen of mine, who declare that the cardinal rules all things at
his pleasure in Scotland, and governs the governor himself. In the town
of St Johnston, he hung up four respectable citizens, for no other cause
than because they had requested a monk, in the middle of his sermon, not
to depart in his doctrine from the sacred text, and not to mix up
notions of his own with the words of Christ Along with these a most
respectable matron, carrying a sucking child in her arms, was haled
before the tribunal and condemned to death by drowning. They report that
the constancy of the woman was such, that when her husband was led to
the scaffold, and mounted the ladder, she followed and mounted along
with him, and entreated to be allowed to hang from the same beam. She
encouraged him to be of good cheer, for in a few hours, said she, I
shall be with Christ along with you. They declare also, that the
governor was inclined to liberate them, but that the cardinal suborned
the nobles to threaten that they would leave him if the condemned were
not put to death. When-the cardinal arrived with his army at Dundee,
from which the monks had been expelled, all the citizens took to flight;
and when he saw the town quite deserted, he laughed, and remarked, that
he had expected to find it full of Lutherans. The King of England has
induced the Emperor to issue an order for detaining our Scottish ships
in the Belgian ports; and that Scotsmen, wherever they can be found,
should be thrown into prison. The King himself invaded Scotland with
40,000 foot, and 300 ships, about the middle of Quadragesima; what
success he has had, we have been unable as yet to learn, on account of
the sea being everywhere covered with English ships. If you have heard
any later news in Wittemberg by way of Denmark, take care to communicate
it either to me, or to his Magnificence, our Rector. Farewell, viii.
Calend. Maias, 1554.
"Yours, "Alexander
Alesius."
These cruel executions at
Perth took place on St Paul's day, the 25th of January, and immediately
after, the Regent and his party proceeded with the artillery to Dundee.
The flight of the burghers, and the merriment of Beaton at finding
himself in such a ridiculous position—loaded with heavy ordnance to
fight the Lutherans, and no Lutherans to fight with, after all—are
curious circumstances which the letter just given alone has recorded.
The destroyers of the monasteries of Dundee, however, did not escape
altogether, for in February, several of the citizens were summoned to
appear before Sir John Campbell, of Lundy, the justice deputy, "for
breaking the gates and doors of the Black Friars, and carrying away
chalices, vestments, and the eucharist." But what punishment was
inflicted upon these tumultuary reformers we have not been told. They
had a powerful plea to urge, when they could show that the Regent had
confessed that the sack had been made with his own knowledge and
consent; and probably this plea would be allowed to prevail before a
secular judge. It was not so easy to appease the vengeance of a primate
and a cardinal; and this found John Rogers, "a godly, learned Black
Friar, who had fruitfully preached Christ Jesus, to the comfort of many
in Angus and Mearns." He was one of many whom Beaton imprisoned at that
time, and his prison was the lowest dungeon of the sea-tower of the
castle of St. Andrews—a dismal cavern hollowed out of the solid rock,
which still remains as a memorial of those fearful times. Here, by order
of the cardinal, he was secretly murdered, without even the form of a
trial, and his body cast over the castle wall into the sea. When the
waves gave up their dead upon the beach, the false rumour was spread by
Beaton's attendants, that "the said John, seeking to flee, had broken
his own neck." " Thus ceased not Satan," the historian adds, " by all
means, to maintain his kingdom of darkness, and to suppress the light of
Christ's gospel." And such "a sworn enemy to Christ Jesus, and to all in
whom any spark of knowledge appeared," was he, who at this very time was
invested with all the powers and honours which the see of Rome could
bestow. For it was on the 30th of January, 1544, that the bull of Pope
Paul III. was signed and sealed with the ring of the Fisherman, which
constituted David Beaton legatus a latere, and made him virtually a pope
in the Scottish kingdom.
The tidings of these
persecutions made a deep impression, as we have just seen, upon Alesius.
A year before, when the news from Scotland were so different, all his
German friends expected that nothing would be able to keep him a day
longer in Germany, but that he would instantly return to Scotland, from
which he had been so long banished, to bear a hand in carrying forward
the work of her reformation. But, happily, he had not adopted that
course. Probably, the recency of his appointment at Leipzig had induced
him to postpone his return. He was thus spared the experience of new
trials. But, though still far from the land of his birth, he continued
to feel the deepest interest in the strange vicissitudes of joy and
grief through which it was passing; and the tidings of what had just
happened at Perth and Dundee, determined him to try once more what
service he might be able to render, by his pen, to the struggling cause
of truth and liberty. In the year 1544, he addressed himself to "the
chief nobles, prelates, barons, and whole people of Scotland," in a "Cohortatio
ad Con-cordiam Pietatis" &c. or, "Exhortation to Peace and Concord, in
the bonds of Christian piety and truth." The piece is instinct
throughout with the spirit of true Christian patriotism, as well as with
genuine evangelical earnestness and fervour. Lamenting the distraction
of the kingdom by opposing political factions—the French faction and the
English—he implores his countrymen to lay aside these divisions, and
demonstrates, by many examples from classical history, the dangers of
national disunion, and the duty of patriotic concord, in defence of the
safety and honour of their common country. His expostulations against
the oppression and cruelty of the bishops, and his allusions to the
martyrs who had suffered in the cause of truth, are full of interest;
and his digression, in particular, upon the character and martyrdom of
Patrick Hamilton, is a noble burst of eloquence and pathos. When he
exhorts to national union, he means union in the truth, union in the one
great work of purifying religion, and reforming the corruptions of the
Church of God. What urgent need there was of such a work, he
demonstrates at much length, and with great freedom and faithfulness.
Unless the Church of Christ be reformed, it must perish from the earth,
and those are its worst enemies, not its real friends, who oppose such
indispensable reform. "Everywhere," says he, " we see the church driven
forward upon change. Ask even those who are most solicitous for its
welfare, and they will tell you that the church can no longer be safe or
without troubles, unless it be strengthened by the removal of abuses. If
this, then, is a matter of absolute necessity, unless we would see the
whole church fall into ruins ; if all men confess that this should be
done; if facts themselves call with a loud voice that some care should
be taken to relieve the labouring church, to purify her depraved
doctrine, and to reform her whole corrupt administration, why, I demand,
are those evil spoken of, and vilified, who discover and point out the
church's vices and evils % Never could the proper remedies have
been applied till the disease was known, and yet the men who point it
out, with all its virulence and danger, and wish to alleviate or
entirely remove it, are hated and persecuted as much as if they had
themselves been the cause of it all." With equal force and spirit he
repels the cry of innovation, which was raised against the doctrines of
the Reformers. What was calumniated as an innovation, ought rather to be
regarded as a restoration of most ancient truth. "It is just," says he,
"such a change as would take place in the manners of an age, if the
gravity, modesty, and frugality of ancient times, took the place of
levity, immodesty, luxury, and other vices. Such a change might be
called an introduction of what was new, but, in truth, it would be only
the bringing back again of what was old. And, in like manner, let us
have innovation everywhere, provided only we can get the true for the
false, the serious for the trifling, and solid realities for empty
dreams."
The conclusion of the piece is in a strain of
entreaty and appeal, which was well fitted to impress and solemnize the
highest and proudest in the land.
"In whatever estimation I may stand among you, I am
at least your fellow-countryman, and as such, I earnestly entreat all
and every man; I throw myself at your knees, in the name of God himself,
and our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the salvation of our common country,
and of every man among you, I implore, that you will open your eyes, and
candidly consider both the past and the present. It is well known to you
how many in former days have been banished from their country on the
slightest suspicion : some, who spoke out more freely and boldly, have
even been put to death. King James, of illustrious memory, acknowledged
before his death, that he had been guilty of violence and injustice to
many; he commanded those who were exiles for the Gospel to be recalled;
and he did his utmost to avert from himself the wrath of God in this
behalf. Take care, I beseech you, lest by your fault and heedlessness,
the most just wrath of God, which King James so earnestly strove to
avert, by his repentance and conversion to God, however late, should
flow back again upon you on account of your neglect of his truth, or
even enmity and opposition to the Gospel. Call to mind, I pray you, the
successions to the Scottish crown which took place in times somewhat
farther back, and you will find in these no equivocal signs of the
divine vengeance. And do we suppose that God will not punish impiety and
wickedness in our own times? Nay, he will do it all the more, and all
the more severely, by how much more mercifully and gently he is calling
us to repentance, and inviting us to return to the right way. He is
commanding us to return to him; he is sending messengers to call us; let
not the words of these men be laughed at; let not the men themselves be
repelled; do not suffer yourselves to be deceived by the false
discourses of those, who exclaim that this new doctrine is a doctrine of
turbulence and disorder."
"It is no new doctrine—it is most ancient, or rather
it is eternal; for it preaches that Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, came into the world to save sinners, and that remission of sins
is obtained by the faith of Him. Of Him even Moses wrote, as He tells us
himself; of Him wrote all the prophets. Who should call a doctrine like
this new—the old doctrine which runs on through all ages, and is the
same in all % Rather let those dogmas be called new, as new they
are, by which this doctrine is contaminated and obscured, having been
brought in by the audacity, or ambition, or superstition, of those to
whom had been entrusted the care .of the vineyard of the Lord. For what
else have these men done than the men in the Gospel parable, to whom the
vineyard was let out How many men, sent to them by the Lord
of the vineyard, have they slain, as the Prophets were slain by the
Pharisees of old. Such violence and wrong is in fact done to the Son of
God himself; for the community of the church is the body of Christ Let
us not fight against God, in the teeth of our own conscience. Not
Nineveh alone was laid waste and overthrown, as had been foretold,
though a most mighty city and most powerful kingdom, as a punishment for
its sins; but often since then, both in other ages and in our own, have
similar examples been given. Let us endeavour at least to postpone a
similar overthrow, if we cannot entirely avert it Confessing our sins,
and hating our past life, let us throw ourselves at the feet of Christ;
let us hold fast by the hem of his garment; let us regard no other with
our eyes than this one and only Saviour and Redeemer, our God and Lord.
Thus will God, whose compassion and clemency are infinite, avert from us
the punishments which we deserve in this life, and bring us through
death to the life everlasting; to whom the only true, eternal,
omnipotent and merciful God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be praise,
honour and glory, for ever and ever. Amen."
Before this excellent work of Alesius was printed
off, it passed through the hands of Melancthon and Luther, by both of
whom it was highly approved. How it was received in Scotland, we are not
informed; for, like the other epistles of this long-forgotten patriot
and reformer, it is never referred to in our common histories. Like the
others too, it has made a narrow escape of perishing entirely from human
memory, for it now only survives in a very few copies.
This was the last occasion on which Alesius took any
direct part in the history of the Reformation of his native Church. But
in 1554, when he published a Latin Commentary upon the Psalms, the
interest which he felt in the country of his birth was still deep and
active, for that work contains many references, full of the strongest
feeling, to the Scottish martyrs who had perished and were still
perishing in the long-protracted conflict He survived to learn the
successes of Knox in 1555 and 1559, and to hear the joyful tidings of
the final triumph of the cause in 1560. But he did not return to
Scotland at that era. He continued to serve the Evangelical Church of
Germany, in the theological faculty of the University of Leipzig, till
his death in 1565. He was several times rector of the University, and
was indefatigable in promoting and defending the interests of true
religion both by his writings and public disputations. Melancthon
continued to the end of his life in 1560 to honour him with his
confidence and friendship, and frequently chose him as his colleague and
coadjutor, in the theological conferences which he held both with the
theologians of Rome and the teachers of new doctrines in the Evangelical
Church. So eminent was his name on the Continent, that when Beza wrote
his "Icones," or portraits of the great theologians of the sixteenth
century, he introduced the name of Alexander Alesius, as that of a man "
who was dear to all the learned—who would have been a distinguished
ornament of Scotland if that country had recovered at an earlier period
the light of the gospel—and who, when rejected by both Scotland and
England, was most eagerly embraced by the evangelical church of Saxony,
and continued to be warmly cherished and esteemed by her to the day of
his death."
But Alesius was not the only living link of connexion
between the Lutheran Churches of the Continent and the Scottish
Reformation. His friend, John McAlpin, shared his long continental
exile, and rose to almost equal eminence as a theologian and academic
teacher. After his flight from England, in 1540, he staid for a short
time at Bremen, where he gave evangelical instruction to San Roman, the
first Protestant martyr of Spain. Early in 1542 he was created Doctor of
Theology at Wittemberg, and was soon after invited by Christiern III.,
King of Denmark, to settle in the University of Copenhagen, in the room
of John Bugenhagen Pomeranus, who had returned to Wittemberg. In this
influential post, in which he continued till his death, he rendered
eminent services to the Danish Church. He was one of the translators of
the Scriptures into the Danish tongue, a work which was completed in
1550, and in the preparation of which he was associated with Peter
Palladius, and the other members of the theological faculty. The
historians of Denmark commemorate his distinguished learning and
usefulness; and a good many of his writings, published and m manuscript,
still survive. He had assumed at Wittemberg the name of Maccabaeus,
at the suggestion of Melancthon, and by this surname, which was
probably nothing more than a Latinized form of his family cognomen,
which was sometimes pronounced Mc Alpy, he continued to be known for the
rest of his life. When he died, in 1557, the King of Denmark followed
him to his grave, and Melancthon wrote his epitaph.
John Faith was another of these learned Scottish
exiles. He was incorporated with the University of Wittemberg in 1540,
along with McAlpin, and afterwards went by the name of John Fidelis.
Having mastered the German language, he was appointed Pastor of the
Evangelical Church of Liegnitz, in Silesia; and was subsequently
promoted to a theological chair in the University of Francfort-on-the-Oder.
For these appointments he was probably indebted to the good offices of
Melancthon, who seems to have taken a peculiarly warm interest in the
fortunes of all these Scottish exiles. There is a letter of
Melancthon,.still extant, addressed to John Fidelis at Francfort, in
1556, in which he introduces to him a Scotchman, named Linus or Lyne, as
a man of learning and true piety, and in which, after reminding him that
it is the will of God that we should show hospitality to such guests, he
remarks, "For my part, I think we Germans owe a special debt of
gratitude to the Scottish nation; because in former times we received
from them both Christianity and letters, when the Churches of Germany
had been overrun and ruined by the Heneti and the Huns." |
|
