The Reformation was now to pass into a new phase. It
had developed itself into an evangelical creed, and worship, and
discipline, but it was still without political rights and protection.
The State had as yet conceded to it only a single franchise, that of
freedom to use the Word of God in the vernacular tongue; and the statute
book contained many Acts of the most hostile kind which
were designed to repress and extinguish it Its struggle for political
recognition was now to begin.
This struggle had become a necessity. It was now
abundantly certain that no religious redress or relief was to be
expected from the rulers of the Church. Though more than thirty years
had passed away since the Reformation began to be preached in Scotland,
not a single bishop or mitred abbot had gone over to its side;
nor in any of the councils which met during that long period, had a
single authoritative voice ever been lifted up to plead for a larger
measure of Church reform than might have been asked for and obtained
before the great Reformation movement began. It was hopeless then to
expect that the clergy would be induced to concede anything of
importance to the demands of the Reformers. It was plain that the State
must be appealed to, to decide between the two ecclesiastical parties.
The authority of the Queen-Regent and the parliament must now be invoked
to moderate and to end the strife.
Henceforth then the Queen-Regent, Mary of Guise,
became a main figure in the action. It was not of course to be expected
that the sister of the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, would
ever be gained over to the doctrines of the Reformation herself. The way
in which she had treated Knox's fervent appeal to her conscience gave
little hope of her personal conversion. The bishops, we may be sure, had
no misgivings upon that score ; but on the question of the policy which
she was likely to pursue towards her Protestant subjects, now that they
had grown up into a powerful party, having at their head a large number
of the principal men of the kingdom, there was room both for
apprehension to the bishops and for hope to the Reformers. For some time
after her appointment to the regency, her public conduct had been
somewhat ambiguous upon this important point, and her aim had seemed to
be to give some degree of encouragement to the hopes of both parties.
The truth was that she had political objects of her own to gain; and it
was necessary for their attainment, that for a time she should have the
support both of the clergy and the Protestants. As a Frenchwoman, she
preferred the interest and honour of France to those of her adopted
country; as a Guise, she was zealous for the aggrandisement of her
powerful brothers, who were now the chief managers of French affairs;
and both of these objects were now intimately involved in the gaining of
the crown matrimonial of Scotland for Francis, the husband of the young
Scottish queen. Such an acquisition would make Francis and the Guises
the rulers of Scotland as well as France; and to have the rule of
Scotland was the indispensable condition of their success in reaching
the ultimate object of their ambition—the rule of England itself. But
the crown matrimonial could only be conferred by the vote of the Estates
of the kingdom; and success in a meeting of the Estates was hopeless, if
either the Catholic party or the Protestant party opposed the Regent's
design. It was indispensable, till this design was realized, that she
should retain the confidence of both, or at least not entirely
disappoint the expectations of either; and being a princess of
uncommon talent, and of consummate duplicity, she succeeded perfectly in
playing this difficult part, and in attaining the object of her desires.
Hence it was that for a time she appeared to hold the
balance pretty even between the two religious parties. If in 1556 she
discouraged, on the one hand, the persecution which the bishops had
commenced against Knox; she disappointed, on the other, the hope of any
fruit of his letter to herself. If in 1558 she did not interfere to
prevent the cruel execution of Mill, she affected to the Protestant
lords to lament the cruelty of the archbishop, and to excuse herself as
innocent in that cause; and when they, "nothing suspecting her
falsehood, required some order to be taken against such enormities, she
promised, as often before." At one time, she summoned the preachers, to
please the angry clergy; and anon, she cast the summons again, to calm
and conciliate the angry Protestants. On St. Giles's day, she joined in
the procession of the Saint, at the risk of provoking the party who were
fervent against that abomination; and when the tumult was over, she made
no great efforts to bring its authors to a reckoning for their offence.
A policy of this kind left room for hope both to the mitred lords of the
church, and to the coroneted lords of the congregation. The former still
hoped to retain her as the Defender of the Faith; and to make this hope
sure, they thought it a good investment of the Church's wealth, to
tender to her "a large purse' worth, it is said, £40,000; while the
latter did not yet despair of being able to move her by their petitions
and complaints to become the Protector of the Congregation.
The First Petition of the Reformers to the Regent was
presented in October, 1558. "After the deliberation of many days, it was
concluded, with one consent, that by one public and common supplication,
we should attempt the favours, support, and assistance of the Queen,
then Regent, to a godly, Reformation." To this step they were stimulated
by the exhortations of John Willock, who had returned to Scotland at
that time; and who, with that mixture of fervour and moderation which
distinguished him, while anxious to see "some public Reformation"
attempted, had counselled them to enterprise nothing without the
knowledge of the constituted authority. The petition which they drew up,
probably with Willock's assistance, is a document of great dignity and
moderation in matter, as well as of remarkable beauty and purity of
style; and its authors were careful to give it every advantage in the
manner of its presentation; for, "After we had drawn our oraison and
petitions," says their historian, "we appointed from amongst us a man
whose age deserved reverence, whose honesty and worship might have
craved audience of any magistrate upon earth, and whose faithful service
to the authority at all times had been such, that on him could fall no
suspicion of unlawful disobedience. This orator was that ancient and
honourable father, Sir James Sandilands, of Calder, knight, to whom we
gave commission and power in all our names then present, before the
Queen-Regent thus to speak :—
"Albeit we have of long
time contained ourselves in that modesty, most noble Princess, that
neither the exile of body, tinsall1 of goods, nor perishing of this
mortal life, was able to convene us to ask at your Grace reformation and
redress of those wrangs and of that sore grief patiently borne of us in
bodies and minds of so long time, yet are we now of very conscience and
by the fear of our God, compelled to crave at your Grace's feet remedy
against the most unjust tyranny used against your Grace's most obedient
subjects, by those that be called the Estate Ecclesiastical. Your Grace
can not be ignorant what controversy hath been and yet is, concerning
the true religion and right worshipping of God, and how the clergy (as
they will be termed) usurp to themselves such empire above the
consciences of men, that whatsoever they command must be obeyed, and
whatsoever they forbid must be avoided, without farther respect had to
God's pleasure, commandment, or will, revealed to us in his most holy
word; or else there abideth nothing for us but faggot, fire, and sweard;
by the which many of our brethren most cruelly and most unjustly have
been stricken of late years within this realm. Which now we find to
trouble and wound our consciences; for we acknowledge it to have been
our bound duties before God, either to have defended our brethren from
those cruel murtherars, (seeing we are a part of that power which God
hath established in this realm,) or else to have given open
testification of our faith with them; which now we offer ourselves to
do; lest that by our continual silence we shall seem to justify their
cruel tyranny, which doth not only displease us, but your Grace's wisdom
most prudently doth foresee that for the quieting of this intestine
dissension, a further reformation as well in the religious as in the
temporal government were most necessary; and to the performance thereof,
most gravely and most godly (as we are informed) ye have exhorted as
well the clergy as the nobility to employ their study, diligence, and
care. We, therefore, of conscience, dare no longer dissemble in so
weighty a matter, which concerneth the glory of God and our salvation.
Neither now dare we withdraw our presence nor conceal our petitions,
lest that the adversaries hereafter shall object to us that place was
granted to reformation, and yet no man suited for the same, and so shall
our silence be prejudicial unto us in time to come. And therefore we,
knowing no other order placed in this realm but your Grace, in your
grave council, set to amend as well the disorder ecclesiastical as the
defaults in the temporal government, most humbly prostrate ourselves
before your feet, asking your justice and your gracious help against
them that falsely traduce and accuse us, as that we were heretics and
schismatics, under that colour seeking our destruction; for that we seek
the amendment of their corrupted lives, and Christ's religion to be
restored to the original purity. Farther, we crave of your Grace with
open and patient ears to hear these our subsequent requests, and to the
joy and satisfaction of our troubled consciences mercifully to grant the
same, unless by God's plain word any be able to prove that justly they
ought to be denied."
Then follow five requests or petitions, (1) That as
they were already allowed by law to read the Scriptures in their common
tongue, it should also be made lawful to them "to convene publicly or
privately to our common prayers in our vulgar tongue." (2) That it
should be lawful, if in their meetings any hard place of Scripture
should be read, that any qualified persons in knowledge, being present,
should interpret and open up the said hard places, to God's glory and
the profit of the auditory. (3) That the Holy Sacrament of Baptism
should be used in the vulgar tongue, and the godfathers and Church then
assembled should be instructed in their duties. (4) That the Holy
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper should likewise be ministered in the
vulgar tongue, and in both kinds, according to the plain institution of
Christ Jesus. And lastly, that the wicked life of the prelates and state
ecclesiastical should be so reformed, that the people by them
may not have occasion, as of many days they have had, to
contemn their ministry, and the preaching whereof they professed to be
messengers. This last petition they enforced in the following remarkable
terms:—"And if they suspect that we, rather envying their honours or
coveting their riches and possessions, than zealously desiring their
amendment and salvation, do travel and labour for this reformation; we
are content not only that the rules and precepts of the New Testament,
but also the writings of the ancient fathers and the godly approved laws
of Justinian the emperor, decide the controversy betwixt us and them.
And if it shall be found that either malevolently or ignorantly we ask
more than these three forenamed have required and continually do require
of able and true ministers in Christ's Church, we refuse not correction,
as your Grace with right judgment shall think meet But and if all the
forenamed shall damn that which we damn, and approve that which we
require, then we most earnestly beseech your Grace, that notwithstanding
the long consuetude which they have had to live as they list, they be
compelled either to desist from ecclesiastical administration, or to
discharge their duties as becometh true ministers; so that the grave and
godly face of the primitive Church reduced, ignorance may be expelled,
and true doctrine and good manners may once again appear in the Church
of this realm. These things we, as most obedient subjects, require of
your Grace, in the name of the eternal God and of his Son, Christ Jesus,
in presence of whose throne judicial, ye and all other that here on
earth bear authority shall give accompts of your temporal regiment. The
Spirit of the Lord Jesus move your Grace's heart to justice and equity.
Amen."
On hearing of these demands for reform thus publicly
and solemnly made, the estate ecclesiastical began to storm. First they
devised "all manner of lies" to deface the equity of the cause of the
Reformers. Then they bragged that they would have a public disputation
on the questions raised by the petition; but on this challenge being
accepted by their opponents on the condition that the plain Scriptures
of God should decide all controversy, they refused the condition; for no
judge would they admit but themselves, their councils, and the canon
law. Next they professed their readiness to make some concessions; they
would grant to the Protestants the liberty to pray and baptize in the
vulgar tongue, provided it were done privately and not in open assembly,
and provided also the Reformers would admit the mass to remain in its
former reverence and estimation, grant purgatory after this life,
confess prayer to saints and for the dead, and suffer the clergy to
enjoy their accustomed rents, possessions, and honours. But the
"grossness" of these articles was such that with one voice the Reformers
refused them, and again sought audience of the Regent, to crave justice
at her hand, t and a reasonable
answer to their former petitions. She
received them very graciously, and while holding out
to them the hope that some uniform order would ere long be established
by parliament in the matters to which their petition referred, she gave
them permission in the meantime "to use themselves godly according to
their desires," provided they did not hold public assemblies for worship
in Edinburgh or Leith; and she gave them also a promise of protection to
their favourite preachers. "Nothing suspecting her doubleness and
falsehood," they departed from the presence-chamber contented with her
answer, and in deference to her wishes dissuaded John Douglas, who
purposed to preach publicly in Leith, from carrying out his design.
But with equal address she managed, at the same time,
to reassure and retain the confidence of the bishops. She revealed to
them in secret her real disposition and designs, and promised that so
soon as time and opportunity should serve, "she should so put order in
their matters that afterwards they should not be troubled;" and that
time, she hoped, was not now very far distant. A Parliament was to meet
immediately, at which she expected to obtain the crown matrimonial for
the French king; and a treaty of peace and alliance "was jiow on foot
between France, Spain, England, and Scotland, which, by uniting all
these kingdoms in the common bonds of Catholicism, promised to be the
ruin of Lutheranism and the salvation of the Church.
When the Parliament met, she was still able, by her
consummate skill in the arts of dissimulation, to make the protestant
lords the tools of her ambition, while effectually counterworking their
most cherished desires and designs. They had resolved to follow up their
Petition to the Regent with another Petition to the Estates, in which
they humbly required "that all such Acts of Parliament as in the time of
darkness gave power to the Churchmen to execute their tyranny against
them, by reason that to them they were delated as heretics, might be
suspended and abrogated till a general council, lawfully assembled,
should have decided all controversies in religion." But before
presenting the petition to the Estates, they submitted it to the Regent,
"because they were determined to enterprise nothing without her
knowledge; most humbly requiring her favourable assistance in their just
action." She spared not amiable looks, and good words in abundance, but
"always she kept the bill close in her pocket;" and when, growing uneasy
at this, they required of her Grace that their Petition should be
proposed to the whole assembly, she answered, That she did not think
such a course would be expedient, "for then would the whole
ecclesiastical state be contrary to her proceedings in the affair of the
crown matrimonial. But," she added, "how soon order can be taken with
that matter, which might now be hindered by the Churchmen, ye shall know
my good mind; and in the meantime, whatsoever I may grant unto you shall
gladly be granted."
Strange to say, the leaders of the Congregation did
not even yet suspect her treachery, and, "giving place to her pleasure,"
they consented to abstain from pressing their Petition upon the
Parliament, rather than endanger the success of her favourite scheme.
Happily, however, they did not altogether omit the duty which they owed
to their great cause upon this occasion. Instead of the Petition
for redress of grievances which they had drawn up, they laid on the
table of the Estates a Protestation breathing the same spirit,
and directed to the same ends, but differing in immediate effect from
the other, inasmuch as it did not oblige the Parliament to enter into
any discussion of its contents, or in any practical way to dispose of
them. " We suppose it is a thing sufficiently known," said they in this
remarkable document, "that we were of mind at this present Parliament to
seek redress of such enormities as our consciences are burdened withal;
but considering that the troubles of the time do not suffer such
reformation as we, by God's plain Word, do require, we are enforced to
delay that which most earnestly we desire; and yet, lest that our
silence should give occasion to our adversaries to think that we repent
our former enterprise, we cannot cease to protest for remedy against
that most unjust tyranny which we heretofore most patiently have
sustained. And first, we protest, that seeing we cannot obtain a just
reformation according to God's Word, it be lawful to us to use ourselves
in matters of religion and conscience as we must answer to God, unto
such time as our adversaries be able to prove themselves the true
ministers^of Christ's Church, and to purge themselves of such crimes as
we have already laid to their charge, offering ourselves to prove the
same whensoever the sacred authority please to give us audience.
Secondly, we protest that neither we, nor any other that godly list to
join with us in the true faith, which is grounded upon the invincible
Word of God, shall incur any danger in life or lands, or other political
pains, for not observing such Acts as heretofore have passed in favour
of our adversaries, neither yet for violating of such rites as man
without God's commandment or Word hath commanded. Thirdly, we protest,
that if any tumult or uproar shall arise among the members of this realm
for the diversity of religion, and if it shall happen that abuses be
violently reformed, that the crime thereof be not imputed to us, who
most humbly do now seek all things to be reformed by an order; but
rather whatsoever inconvenient shall happen to follow for lack of order
taken, that may be imputed to those that do refuse the same. And last,
we protest that these our requests, proceeding from conscience, do tend
to none other end but to the reformation of abuses in religion only;
most humbly beseeching the sacred authority to take us, faithful and
obedient subjects, in protection against our adversaries, and to shew to
us such indifferency in our most just petitions, as it becometh God's
lieutenants to do, to those that in His name do call for defence against
cruel oppressors and bloodthirsty tyrants."
The Protestation was read aloud in Parliament, but
was not allowed to be recorded. The Queen-Regent made a short speech,
which, though spoken in indifferent English, showed what a perfect
command she had of the ambiguous.terms of the language. "Me will
remember," she exclaimed, "what is protested, and me will put good order
after this to all things that now be in controversy." No words could
have been found better fitted to her purpose of .seeming to promise
much, while in reality she promised nothing; and the Reformers in
Parliament, more honest than sagacious, and forgetful of the warnings of
that Word which they loved, "not to put their trust in princes," "departed,"
the historian tells us, "in good esperance of her favours, and praising
God in their hearts that she was so well inclined towards
godliness."
The two Petitions and the Protestation now mentioned
are of deep interest, and of great historical importance. They shew what
was the minimum of reform which the protestant party would have
been willing to accept, if the ecclesiastical estate had been willing to
concede it They suggest the reflection, how vastly different,
apparently, the issues of the Reformation in Scotland would have been,
if the clergy had not been utterly blind to the "signs of the times,"
and had embraced this the last opportunity which they were ever to have
of making terms with an enemy who was ever increasing in power, and
rising in the height of his demands. The Reformation demanded in 1558
was the Reformation which Sir David Lindsay had sketched in the
"Monarchic" in 1554, and would have preserved the
episcopal fabric of the Church, even if it had necessitated a separation
from Rome. But the Scottish bishops had not a single man among them who
had received any tincture of the evangelical spirit, and their incurable
corruption and obstinacy proved the ruin of their order in the Scottish
Church. Their blind and scornful defiance of the demands of 1558 opened
the way for the root-and-branch Reformation of 1560.
These documents of 1558 no less establish the
important fact, that if the Reformation was soon afterwards effected in
a violent and irregular manner by an explosion of popular fervour, the
blame of this was not owing to the leaders of the Congregation, but to
the rulers of the Church and the State. Most earnestly did the Reformers
petition and protest for an orderly reformation, carried through by the
regular constitutional action of the public authorities. Most distinctly
did they forewarn the Regent and the Parliament of the consequences
which would probably ensue from "lack of order taken" while there was
yet time and opportunity.. Most solemnly did they repudiate beforehand
all responsibility for any "tumult and uproar" which should afterwards
arise. Where, then, is the historical justice of throwing the blame of
that tumult upon the men who did their utmost to prevent and provide
against it Ought it not rather to fall upon those blind and bigoted
rulers who provoked resentment by their obstinate adherence to the most
flagrant corruptions, and by their cruel persistence in persecutions,
which it is rather to be marvelled at that innocent men should have
tolerated so long, than that they should have risen up at last to put an
end to them as altogether intolerable.
The Anglo-Scottish War
of 1558 and the Scottish Reformation
By Amy Blakeway
The year 1558 was one of open war
between England and Scotland. Previous scholarly accounts of this period
have glossed over this conflict. This article first establishes the
contours of the war. The failure of peace negotiations in the first
portion of the year was linked to Scots’ hopes of an invasion of Berwick
in the aftermath of the fall of Calais, and the tentative movements
towards peace in October were disturbed by the death of Mary Tudor in
November 1558. Beyond its implications for Anglo-Scots relations,
however, this conflict was significant in a domestic Scottish context.
The second part of the article argues that the war interacted with
better-known factors such as the accession of Elizabeth I. anti-French
feeling and the growth of Protestant preaching to create the
circumstances which made the Reformation Rebellion of 1559 possible.
Increased mobility prompted by a national war effort, coupled with a
governmental focus on defence, and reliance on reformers in the national
army, simultaneously promoted the spread of reformed ideas and inhibited
the authorities’ ability to contain them. The war of 1558 therefore
helped to foster the growth of ‘heresy’, which in 1559 blossomed into
full-scale religious rebellion.
