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IT was during these
months, when Knox was absent, that the plot was hatched for the
murder of Rizzio. Morton declares that the Reformer had "neither art
nor part " in it. That we can well believe. He did not love the
shedding of blood, and no one ever suffered the last penalty because
of him. He despised Rizzio, speaks contemptuously of him as that
"vile knave Davie," that "great abuser of this commonwealth," and he
would have been quite willing that the country should be got rid of
him by a fair and open trial. But that was not the way of the
Scottish nobles at that time. Assassination was openly accepted as a
legitimate method of getting quit of a dangerous or obnoxious
opponent. Rizzio had made himself intolerable by his arrogance, and
Mary acted with the most fatal imprudence in showering favours on
him and raising him to the highest position at the Court. Her marked
preference for him also roused the jealousy of her husband, Darnley,
who entered into the plot with the Earl of Morton, Lord Lindsay, and
the Lord Ruthven to get rid of the Italian adventurer at whatever
cost. The murder took place on the evening of Saturday the 9th of
March. Darnley entered the Queen's Cabinet, where she was at supper
with Rizzio and her half-sister, the Countess of Argyle. The King
was soon followed by Ruthven, and he by others, and Rizzio was done
to death before Mary's very eyes.
Little was gained at
the time by those who were most active in the plot. Mary acted with
great determination. She at once talked Darnley over, detached him
from the rest of the conspirators, and escaped with him to Dunbar. A
week after she returned to the capital (18th of March) with a
considerable following, and surrounded by the Catholic and several
of the Protestant Lords. Mary's energy and courage on this occasion
were worthy of the race from which she sprang. Shortly after her
arrival in the country, when fighting the Earl of Huntly, she
expressed to the English Ambassador her regret that "she was not a
man to know what life it was, to lie all night in the fields, or to
walk on the causeway with a jack and knapschalle, a Glasgow buckler
and a broadsword."
In place of weakening
Mary's position and strengthening that of Darnley by the murder of
Rizzio, Morton and his fellow-conspirators found that they had
accomplished quite the reverse. The Queen had talked over her weak
husband, but she despised him heartily for his recent conduct, and
her contempt for him was soon to pass into hatred. His
fellow-accomplices also turned upon him, for he had betrayed them to
the Queen. They sought safety in flight. The Protestant cause now
lacked the support which the presence of its chief leaders would
have given it, and Mary and the Catholic party were accordingly in
the ascendant.
Knox at this time
also left the capital. On the 17th of March 1566 he turned his steps
towards Ayrshire, departing "of the burgh at two hours afternoon
with a great mourning of the godly of religion." Five days before he
had penned, "with deliberate mind to his God," his famous
Confession, prefacing it with the prayer, "Lord Jesus receive my
spirit, and put an end at Thy good pleasure to this my miserable
life, for justice and truth are not to be found among the sons of
men." In the month of June an event of great national importance
took place. On the 19th of that month Mary gave birth to a son in
the Castle of Edinburgh. This child had a great destiny before him.
It was reserved for him to realise the dream of his mother: the
union, under him as monarch, of the two kingdoms of England and
Scotland.
The quarrel between
Mary and Darnley grew more bitter, and became a scandal to the whole
of Europe. The Queen, who would seem never to have been able to
continue for any length of time without committing her heart to the
care of someone, how ever unworthy, began now to look with favour
upon the Earl of Bothwell, who was ultimately to prove her ruin. He
was a noble of the swash-buckler order, rash and venturesome, and
the very last man to guide with wisdom the troubled affairs of
Scotland. In the eyes of Knox he possessed two redeeming qualities:
he was a Protestant, and the head of the House to which Knox's
family were feudally related. It was probably for these reasons that
he used his influence on behalf of the Reformed Church. Certainly
while he was in favour better treatment was meted out to the
ministers, who received as a gift, but not as a right, a part of
their stipends.
On the 23rd of
December an event took place which caused the greatest consternation
among the Protestants. On that date the Archbishop of St. Andrews
was restored to full Consistorial jurisdiction. The General Assembly
which met in December instructed Knox to rouse the Protestant nobles
to a sense of the great danger that threatened them, and lie also
wrote an epistle, on his own account, to the adherents of
Protestantism throughout the country, awakening them to a full
realisation of the significance of the act which the Queen had done.
At the same Assembly Knox was commissioned to "address a letter to
the pastors and bishops of England, in which in name of the Reformed
Scottish Church he besought them to deal tenderly with the
consciences of their brethren." He at the same time determined to
visit England. The object of his journey was partly, no doubt, to
commune with and strengthen those who were being troubled by recent
ecclesiastical enactments, chiefly affecting ritual. No record is
left of this journey, but he would most likely visit Berwick,
possibly Newcastle, and other places associated with his early
ministry in the sister kingdom.
Knox had much need of
this holiday, for since his return to Scotland, seven years before,
he had laboured with an energy, zeal, and perseverance that would
have taxed a much stronger constitution than his. He had taken the
foremost part in carrying through the Reformation, with its
accompanying Revolution; and in addition to his multifarious labours
as preacher of the Gospel and minister of St. Giles', he had to
carry the heavy responsibility of initiating and guiding the course
of events towards a definite end. For several years, when deserted
by his old associates, he had to fight the battle of Protestantism
with almost no man of mark behind him; and were it not that he had
roused the commons of Scotland to a sense of their religious and
civil birthright, the cause which he championed must have been lost.
With a wise prescience he fostered the Protestant religion in the
chief towns and counties, and when, shortly after this date, the
decision as to which religion was to triumph had to be taken, public
opinion was found to be on his side. His duties as minister of
Edinburgh were in themselves sufficient for any ordinary man. When
we consider the number of sermons that he preached weekly, their
inordinate length, the meetings of his elders and deacons which he
faithfully attended, the demands made upon his time and thought by
seekers after truth, and others who were troubled in their
conscience or by domestic or worldly affairs, our surprise is that
he was able to bear up under it all, and to perform his various
tasks not only with faithfulness but distinction.
But during all these
years, indeed ever since 1559, he had another work on hand, one that
in itself would have been sufficient for an ordinary man: that was
the writing of his famous History of the Reformation. After the
Lords of the Congregation had set themselves seriously to the reform
of religion they found that their purpose and conduct were being
misrepresented. Foreign nations were forming false opinions of them,
through garbled reports sent by unfriendly hands. The leaders of the
movement felt it to be their duty to put themselves right in the
eyes of the world, and commissioned Knox to do this for them by
giving a faithful account, day by day, of their proceedings. This he
did in the second and third books of his History. In addition he
wrote an introductory book and also a supplementary one, the first
and fourth. It is fortunate for us that he did so, for they are by
far the most interesting. In the first we get the measure of the
author as an historian, and in the fourth his personality is fully
revealed. Were it not for the latter book Knox would not be the man
he is in the hearts of Scotsmen. It is unconsciously
autobiographical; and the vivid, forcible, and, at times, humorous
sketches which he gives of incidents, characters, and encounters of
a warlike and more pacific nature, make the period and the men that
he describes live before us. It is not at all unlikely that he gave
the finishing touches to his History while he was in England. In any
case, during his stay a few months earlier in Kyle he wrote the
preface to the fourth book. The fifth book was not written by him.
He may have prepared the notes for it, but in its actual composition
he had no part.
While Knox was absent
in England events of the first importance were happening in
Scotland. The breach between Mary and Darnley had become wider, the
relations between the Queen and Bothwell closer, and the final
outcome was the murder of the Kin; at Kirk o' Field, near Edinburgh,
on the 10th of February 1567. This dreadful crime caused the utmost
consternation. Suspicion at once fixed on Bothwell, and his marriage
with Mary on the 15th of May implicated her also in the tragedy. The
national sense was shocked by this union. To make their marriage
possible Bothwell had to procure a divorce from his wife, and as
this was obtained from the Archbishop of St. Andrews the reason for
the restoration of the Consistorial powers of that prelate was at
once seen. The nobles rose up in revolt against Mary and Bothwell,
took the former prisoner at Carberry Hill, led her to Edinburgh amid
the scoffs and jeers of the populace, and finally on the 16th of
June confined her in Loch Leven Castle, where she remained till the
2nd of May 1568, when she made her escape. Both Mary and Bothwell
were believed by the people to be guilty of the murder of Darnley.
This conviction thoroughly roused the commons, who judged her
condemned by the laws of God and of the nation. Knox's strenuous
labours now bore fruit in the injured conscience of the community;
and while the nobles for the most part were inclined to forgive and
forget, the people would do neither, but were determined that no one
suspected of murder, and who afterwards married her paramour, should
reign over them.
The country was now
without any government, and the only body that could act was the
General Assembly. It was convened to meet on the 25th of June, and
Knox returned from England in order to be present, but as the
attendance was small it was decided that another meeting should be
held on the 26th of July. No Assembly of equal importance had been
held since the Reformed religion had been set up. It was the channel
through which the national mind was to express itself, and upon it
hung the fate of Mary. It must have appeared to Knox that all for
which he had been so long contending was to be achieved at last. He
held the Queen to be guilty, and stirred the people to a sense of
her iniquity and of the national shame which that inquity entailed.
The Assembly, so far as its power went, dethroned Mary, reaffirmed
the Acts of 1560 establishing the new religion, and received an
assurance from the Lords present that at the first meeting of the
Estates Parliamentary assent should be given to all that had been
done in the interests of the Church.
Knox's triumph was
not yet absolute. The final victory was won when, on the 29th of
July, the infant Prince was crowned at Stirling, Knox preaching the
sermon. On the 2nd of August the Earl of Moray returned to act as
Regent. The government of the country was now in capable hands; and
Knox, between whom and the Earl the old friendship was resumed,
would feel that the Reformed religion had triumphed at last.
Parliament met on the 15th of December; Knox preached the opening
sermon, and the Estates ratified afresh all that the Reformer had
contended for. Knox and his colleagues put forth their whole
strength to rally the people round the new government, and their
efforts met with so marked success that those nobles who had stood
aloof were compelled to come in and support the government of the
Regent. Indeed, matters looked so promising that the Assembly which
met on the 25th of December was able to write in the following
hopeful strain to John Willock, then in England, and whom they
invited to return to Scotland to take his share in the task that was
almost completed: "Our enemies, praise be God, are dashed, religion
established, sufficient provision made for ministers, order taken
and penalty appointed for all sort of transgression and
transgressors. And above all, a godly magistrate, whom God of His
Eternal and heavenly Providence bath reserved to this age to put in
execution whatsoever He by His law commandeth."
Although the cause of
the Reformation was practically won, there were many serious
troubles ahead which the writers of this optimistic letter did not
foresee. Moray's government after all was very unstable. Though it
was "broad-based upon the people's will," it had many secret and
open foes to contend against both in Scotland and in England. The
Hamiltons could never forgive Moray the slight cast upon their House
by his Regency, and Elizabeth was not in a mood to support those
whom she regarded as rebels against their Queen.
Mary's party were far
from idle, and on the 2nd of May 1568 they contrived her escape from
Loch Leven Castle. The Battle of Langside was fought a fortnight
afterwards; Mary was a fugitive in England, and Moray's triumph
seemed complete. Knox, however, was not so hopeful. In letters
written by him at this time traces are found not only of pessimism
regarding the future of his country, but of decaying strength in
himself. Until now his outlook had remained hopeful, but old age was
claiming him at last, and with it came that lack of energy which
advancing years usually bring. His forebodings were fulfilled in the
assassination of the Regent on the 23rd of January 1570, and his
grief was intensified by the fact that the assassin, Hamilton of
Bothwellhaugh, had been pardoned by the Regent on his intercession.
At the funeral of Moray Knox preached the sermon from the text,
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord," and it is recorded
that he moved " three thousand persons to shed tears for the loss of
such a good and godly governor."
The death of Moray
was indeed irreparable to the country, and particularly to Knox. He
was the spiritual child of the Reformer; his splendid powers had
grown and developed under the approving eye of Knox. They were bound
together by a common cause and hope. In their patriotism and policy,
religion and character, they were one. Moray was a born ruler, his
prudence equalled his judgment, and his energy was only outstripped
by his zeal. Scotland does well to remember him; and the popular
judgment, which in the end seldom errs, has ever regarded him as the
"Good Regent." |
