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KNOX left Dieppe about
the beginning of August, and journeyed to Geneva: "The most perfect
School of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the
Apostles." Calvin must have been the attraction, for there were no
English exiles there. Knox had arrived independently at the same
conclusions as Calvin regarding the Protestant religion. Both
derived their views from the one source, the Bible. Between the two
men there was an intellectual and religious sympathy. They at once
became friends, and the friendship was never broken.
The persecutions in
England under Bloody Mary drove many exiles to the Continent. About
eight hundred at this time sought refuge in France, Germany, and
Switzerland, and a considerable colony under the leadership of
Whittingham settled in Frankfort-on-the-Main. The municipal rulers
of that Imperial city allowed them the use of the French Church on
alternate Sundays. One condition was laid down, that they would
conform to the creed of that Church. That creed was Calvinistic, and
the English congregation discarded, as a consequence, the Second
Prayer Book of Edward vi. Shortly afterwards, in adopting one for
their own use, they modified the English Service Book, omitting the
litany, kneeling at communion and responses. They also substituted a
new Confession for the one in the English book, and concluded the
service after the Swiss and Scottish fashion with "a psalm in metre
in a plain tune."
It is perfectly clear
from their ready acceptance of the French creed, and afterwards by
the very drastic changes which they made on the English Prayer Book,
that they belonged to that party in the Church of England who a year
or two before were making strong efforts to bring the Reformation
into line with the teaching of Scripture and the practice of the
Early Church. Hooper was one of the leaders of this party, and Knox
was another. They were in a small minority, but all the same they
managed to make very important changes in the doctrine and ritual of
the Church, and they started that movement which afterwards became
so well known as Puritanism. Whittingham and his congregation
endeavoured to induce their fellow-countrymen who were at Zurich,
Strasburg, and Wesel to come to Frankfort, but after some
correspondence it was seen that the English exiles in these towns
were strongly opposed to the views of the Frankfort congregation,
and so they refused the invitation.
Shortly after this,
on the 24th of September, a letter with twenty-one signatures was
sent to Knox at Geneva, inviting him to become one of the ministers
of the English Church at Frankfort. The Scottish preacher was very
much disinclined to accept the offer. His life for the past ten
years had been a troublous, stormy, and strenuous one, and it is not
at all unlikely that he welcomed the peace and repose of Geneva and
the intellectual companionship which he found there. He was also
anxious to repair the defects of his scholarship, and to bring
himself abreast of the attainments of the learned men with whom he
was now associating. But his chief reason was probably the same as
that which compelled him to decline preferment in the Church of
England, "the knowledge of troubles to come." He would be perfectly
well aware of the divided opinions that existed even in the
Frankfort congregation, for although the majority adopted the
modified Prayer Book there was a minority that objected to it. At
length he consented, and he himself declares that it was "at the
command of Mr. Calvin, that notable servant of God, albeit
unwillingly he obeyed the vocation," and so in the second week of
November he arrived in Frankfort.
We now enter on one
of the most important periods in. the life of Knox. It is one that
may not appeal to the general mass of people, but, looking at it
from its effects on the subsequent history of the religious life and
thought of England, it is full of significance. Knox's religious
opinions, which must have been formed before he became a Protestant
in name, were boldly advocated by him from the very first. In St.
Andrews, in the French galleys, and in England, he remained true to
his early convictions, and was able to persuade others to adopt
them. The English Reformation he regarded as a "mingle-mangle." He
did his best to free it of "popish dregs," and to impart to it
Scriptural purity and simplicity, and now at Frankfort he felt
called upon to stand fast to his old opinions. The Service Book
which the English congregation in that city had adopted would seem
to have been only temporary in its character, and one of the first
tasks which awaited him was to decide on a new Order. Two were
suggested, that of Geneva and the Service Book of Edward vi. Knox
felt that in the circumstances it would not be prudent, or even
possible, to introduce either, and being convinced that his presence
would not be conducive to the peace of the church he proposed to
leave. To this, however, "they would in no wise consent." As a way
out of the difficulty they proposed to consult the man of Geneva,
and it was agreed that Whittingham and Knox should send to Calvin a
"platt," or description of the English Service Book, and ask him for
his opinion.
It cannot be said
that the account which was given by these two men of the Second
Prayer Book of Edward vi. was altogether unbiassed. Certain
expressions occur which show that they did not regard it as perfect
by any means. This, of course, was to be expected. Calvin took fully
a month in forming his opinion, and that opinion, as might be
anticipated, was far from favourable. He could not understand what
they meant by "delighting so greatly in the leavings of popish
dregs," and he added that there were "tolerable foolish things" in
the book. Knox again desired to leave, and in any case he counselled
moderation. At last a compromise was arrived at, and a temporary
arrangement made for the conduct of public worship and the
dispensing of the Sacraments.
But at the very
moment when peace at last prevailed fresh troubles broke out. On the
13th of March 1555 a new band of English exiles led by Richard Cox
arrived in Frankfort. Cox had been a man of considerable importance
in England during the reign of King Edward. He never attained to the
first position among the Reformers, but he lacked neither ability
nor courage. He and his companions were in full sympathy with the
English Prayer Book, and felt that there was almost something
dishonourable in their fellow-countrymen renouncing a work for which
many were now in exile, and for adherence to which Cranmer, Ridley,
and others were in prison, and would soon be put to death. Cox
during the last reign had been Chancellor of Oxford University, and
tutor and almoner to the King. Apart from his own undoubted strength
of character, the offices which he had thus held gave him
considerable weight. Knox and his friends welcomed them to their
congregation, but on the very first Sunday on which they attended
church they raised the responses, and on the following Sunday one of
them mounted the pulpit, read the litany, and gave the responses,
Cox at the same time declaring they "would do as they had done in
England, and their church should have an English face."
This, on the lowest
ground, was a breach of Christian courtesy and good manners. They
had been welcomed on the understanding that they would conform to
the accepted service. They must have known of the troubles that had
already caused much dispeace in the congregation, and it was a gross
breach of privilege thus rudely and without warning to introduce
fresh disturbance. Knox happened to be the preacher appointed for
the afternoon, and, roused by the arrogance of Cox and his
confreres, he "set his face like a flint " to resist their bold
attempt, and preached such a sermon as they had very probably never
listened to before.
"I told them," says
Knox, in giving an account of this discourse, "that it became not
the proudest of them all to enterprise the breach of any order
within that church gathered in the name of Christ." "Among many
sins," he continued, "that moved God to plague England, that
slackness to reform religion when time and place was granted was
one, and therefore that it did become us to be circumspect how we
did lay now our foundations, and how we went forward, and because
that some men nothing ashamed to say and affirm openly that there
had been no impediment nor stop in England, but that religion might
go forth and grow to the purity, and that it was already brought to
perfection. I reproved this opinion as feigned and untrue by the
lack of discipline which is not in the book, neither could in
England be obtained, and by the trouble that Mr. Hooper for the
rochet and such trifles in the book allowed, as also by that which
appeared in all men's eyes, that one man was permitted to have power
of five benefices to the slander of the Gospel and defraudation of
Christ's flock of their lively food and sustenance."
But although Knox
spoke thus strongly, he, against the advice of many, recommended
that Cox and his party should be admitted into the full membership
of the Church. This concession was ill repaid, for those who were
thus favoured immediately began to devise ways and means for having
their own aims realised, and the best way to accomplish this, they
well knew, was at all hazards to get rid of Knox. After some vain
attempts at reconciliation the Coxian party began to show their
hand. They threatened Knox. Their threats he treated with contempt.
But they had one weapon in their hand which they now determined to
use. That "outrageous pamphlet" of his, The Admonition to the
Professors of God's Truth, which had "added much oil to the flame of
persecution in England," was now produced, and they formally accused
him to the Frankfort Senate of "Nine articles of high treason
against the Emperor, his son Philip, and the Queen of England."
The Senate had a good
opinion of Knox, and they were not at all inclined to believe the
charges without certain proof. The Emperor was at that moment at
Augsburg, and afraid lest the matter should come to his ears they
asked the offensive passage to be translated into Latin and
submitted to them. Then, afraid lest they might be accused of
harbouring traitors, they, through Whittingham and Williams,
counselled Knox to leave the city as the most prudent course for him
and them. On the night before his departure he preached to a company
of friends "a most comforting sermon " in his lodgings, and on the
following day they accompanied him three or four miles out of the
city, wishing him God-speed "with great heaviness of heart and
plenty of tears."
Knox went direct to
Geneva, where Calvin was now supreme. In his opinion, and that of
his friends, this little town of twelve thousand inhabitants, on the
shores of Lake Leman, was the ideal of a Christian community. It is
doubtful, however, if the strict rule of Calvin was conducive to a
healthy civic life. It aimed at suppressing vice rather than
reforming the morals of the community. It is not therefore
surprising to learn that a tumult broke out on the 16th of May 1555,
the object of the rebels being to put to death the foreigners in the
city, the number of whom was very considerable. These Outlanders
came to Geneva because, theologically, they were of the same mind as
Calvin; and enjoying the franchise they supported him in his policy.
Should they be got out of the way those who groaned under the
tyranny of the Reformer would again obtain liberty. The tumult was
put down, and the rebels were brought to trial; some were punished,
others were banished; and the power of Calvin was again supreme.
The English colony
that had now gathered in Geneva were granted a place of worship, and
Knox was appointed their minister. He would seem, however, to have
at this time stayed only a few weeks in Geneva, for by the month of
August he had left for Scotland. It was now eight years since he had
been in his native country, and we can well imagine his feelings on
revisiting it, for many changes, both of a political and religious
kind, had taken place since the day on which he was summarily
shipped in a French galley and chained as a slave to the oar.
The two parties which
had been at strife prior to Knox's departure in 1547 were still
contending. France on the one hand and England on the other were
fighting for the favour of Scotland; and Scottish statesmen were
divided in their sympathies, some courting the English alliance and
others the French. Indeed, Scotland had become the battlefield of
these two foreign countries. Protector Somerset invaded the country
in 1547 with eighteen thousand men, laying waste the land and
destroying the Religious Houses, the "fair Abbey" of Melrose being
of the number. The Battle of Pinkie, which long continued to be a
sad memory in the minds and hearts of Scotsmen, was fought on the
10th of September. The Regent Arran solicited the aid of France, and
in June of 1548 six thousand Frenchmen landed in Scotland. The
object of both countries was to win the hand of the young Queen of
Scots; in the one case for King Edward, and in the other for the
Dauphin. France was successful. Mary was taken to that country, and
in due time married to the heir to the French throne.
It was the policy of
the Queen Mother, Mary of Lorraine, to maintain the alliance with
France, and to defend the Roman Catholic Church against the attacks
of the Protestant party and it was the policy of her brothers,
the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, to make Scotland an
appanage of France. This scheme was frustrated, and not the least
important factor in defeating it was the disorderly and brutal
conduct of the French troops quartered in Scotland. Their behaviour
was so inhuman and disgraceful that the Scotch revolted, and turned
upon them with a bitter hatred. Many, accordingly, who had
previously been friendly to France, now favoured a political
alliance with England, and this feeling, afterwards strengthened by
the religious revival in favour of Protestantism, destroyed for ever
the hopes of France, and carried through the revolution of 1560.
It was the ambition
of the Queen Mother, in order to carry out with greater success her
policy of an alliance with France, to become Regent, and the Earl of
Arran, who was well meaning but weak, was bribed by the offer of the
Dukedom of Chatelherault in France to resign in favour of Mary of
Guise. In 1554 her ambition was realised, and she thought that she
was now free to proceed with that fusing of France and Scotland into
one which had been her aim ever since she became the wife of James
v. Beaton's successor in the primacy was Hamilton, half-brother of
the Regent. It was no part of his plans to support the Queen Mother
in her policy. His aim, naturally, was to assist his brother in
holding his own against Mary. He accordingly favoured the English
alliance. Those, as a consequence, who were of the Reformed ways
were not subjected, notwithstanding the martyrdom of Adam Wallace,
to much persecution, and Mary in carrying out her policy could not
afford to quarrel with the Protestant party either. It was her aim,
as far as possible, to conciliate them, so that they might, when her
scheme was ripe, give her their support. Thus from no love of the
Protestant Faith, but owing to the stress of the political
situation, both Hamilton and Mary, representing the ecclesiastical
and civil powers, were compelled to leave the Protestants alone.
The new religion was
making very considerable progress in the country, and chiefly among
the lower classes. It was only at a later day, when they saw hopes
of plunder, that the nobility joined with any degree of eagerness in
the Reformation. They had by that time seen the vast material
benefits that had accrued to the English aristocracy by the
destruction of the Roman Catholic Church, and being the poorest
nobility, and also the proudest in the world, they saw hopes of
plunder and of wealth in the religious movement that was affecting
the country.
The leaders of the
Roman Catholic Church were at last becoming alive to their danger.
This can be seen by the various Provincial Councils that were held.
One that met in Edinburgh shortly after Beaton's death petitioned
the Regent to put down heresy, for, unless it was stamped out, it
would undermine and destroy the Church. Another Provincial Council
that was held in 1549 passed sixty-two statutes, which were prefaced
by a remarkable confession, that "the root and cause of the troubles
and heresies which afflicted the Church were the corruption, the
profane lewdness, the gross ignorance of Churchmen of almost all
ranks. The clergy therefore were enjoined to put away their
concubines under pain of deprivation of their benefices, to dismiss
from their houses the children born to them in concubinage, not to
promote such children to benefices, nor to enrich the daughters with
doweries, the sons with baronies, from the patrimony of the Church.
Prelates were admonished not to keep in their households manifest
drunkards, gamblers, brawlers, night-walkers, buffoons, blasphemers,
profane swearers."
We cannot help
admiring the frankness and good intentions of this Provincial
Council. They were perfectly honest in their desire to reform the
Church from within, but the corruptions from which it was suffering,
and which they themselves enumerate, were evidently beyond remedy;
and we are not surprised to learn that the instructions and
recommendations drawn up for the reform of the clergy, and their
guidance in the discharge of their duties, were entirely
disregarded. The Church was too late in its attempt at reform, the
only cure was to come from without; the axe was already laid at the
root of the ecclesiastical tree whose overthrow and destruction were
only a matter of time.
The most notable and
laudable attempt on the part of the Church to purify its life, and
to inspire its teachers with a sense of duty, was the famous
Catechism of Archbishop Hamilton. The real author is supposed to
have been John Wynram. It was written in the Scottish dialect, and
gives a lucid and simple epitome of the chief doctrines of the
Catholic Church. It incidentally throws light on the glaring defects
of the clergy. It would seem that parish priests were not able to
read without stumbling, and we are not surprised to learn that their
schoolboy efforts to decipher the Catechism were met by the jeers of
their congregations. These same congregations were beginning to
display that intelligence which has since characterised the Scottish
people. The religious revival was awakening them, and they were
beginning to read, and to think on the questions that the Protestant
preachers had raised. Books we are told were in circulation, and by
them the Reformed views were disseminated over the land. Ballads,
too, satirising and ridiculing the Romish Church and the clergy,
were being printed. Whenever an institution can be laughed at, its
fate is sealed. The Roman Catholic Church had reached this stage,
and the contempt of the people was prophetic of its approaching
death.
Another factor in
spreading the Reformation in Scotland during this period was the
persecution by Bloody Mary of English Protestants. Many had to
choose between banishment and the fires of Smithfield. Hundreds fled
to the Continent, and a considerable number came across the border
and sought refuge in Scotland. The two most notable men among these
were William Harlaw and John Willock. Both were noted preachers, and
one of them was a distinguished scholar. They laboured earnestly and
successfully, and by means of their preaching the cause of
Protestantism was greatly strengthened in the land. "And last came
John Knox in the end of harvest." |
