OUR attention lights, a few years
after the middle of the sixteenth century, on a little independent kingdom
in the northern part of the British island—a tract of country now thought
romantic and beautiful, then hard-favoured and sterile, chiefly
mountainous, penetrated by deep inlets of the sea, and suffering under a
climate not so objectionable on account of cold as humidity. It contains a
scattered population of probably seven hundred thousand:- the
Scots—thought to be a very ancient nation, descended from a daughter of
Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and living under a monarchy believed to have
originated about the time that Alexander conquered India. A very poor,
rude country it is, as it well might be in that age, and seeing that it
lay so far to the north and so much out of the highway of civilisation. No
well-formed roads in it—no posts for letters or for travelling. A
printing-press in the head town, Edinburgh, but not another anywhere. A
regular localised court of law had not yet existed in it thirty years. No
stated means of education, excepting a few grammar-schools in the
principal towns, and three small universities. Society consisted mainly of
a large agricultural class, half enslaved to the lords of the soil: above
all, obliged to follow them in war. Other industrial pursuits to be found
only in the burghs, the chief of which were Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling,
Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen.
In reality, though it was not known
then, the bulk of the people of Scotland were a branch of the great
Teutonic race which possesses Germany and some other countries in the
north-west of Europe. Precisely the same people they were with the bulk of
the English, and speaking essentially the same language, though for ages
they had been almost incessantly at war with that richer and more advanced
community. As England, however, was neighboured by Wales, with a Celtic
people, so did Scotland contain in its northern and more mountainous
districts a Celtic people also, rude, poor, proud, and of fiery temper,
but brave and possessed of virtues of their own, somewhat like the
Circassians of our own day. These Highland clansmen—whom the English of
that time contemptuously called Redshanks, with reference to their
naked hirsute limbs—were the relics of a greater nation, who once occupied
all Scotland, and of whose blood some portion was mingled with that of the
Scots of the Lowlands, producing a certain fervour of character—’perfervidurn
ingenium Scotorum ‘—which is not found in purely Teutonic natures. The
monarchy had originated with them early in the sixth century of the
Christian era, and had gradually absorbed the rest of Scotland, even while
its original subjects were hemmed more and more within the hilly north.
But, by the marriages of female heirs, this thorn-encircled crown had
come, in the fourteenth century, into a family of Norman-English
extraction, bearing the name of Stuart.
The present monarch was ‘our
Sovereign Lady Mary,’ a young and beautiful woman, married to Francis II.
of France. She had been carried thither in a troublous time during her
childhood, and in her absence, a regent’s sceptre was swayed by her
mother, a princess of the House of Guise. Up to that time, Scotland, like
most of the rest of Europe, was observant of the Catholic religion, and
under vows of obedience to the pope of Rome. But the reforming ideas of
Luther and Melanethon, of Zuinglius and Calvin, at length came to it, and
surprising were the effects thereof. As by some magical evolution, the
great mass of the people instantaneously threw off all regard to the
authority of the pope, with all their old habits of worship, professing
instead a reverence for the simple letter of Scripture, as interpreted to
them by the reforming preachers. Indignant at having been so long blinded
by the Catholic priesthood—whose sloth and luxury likewise disgusted
them—they attacked the churches and monasteries, destroyed the altars and
images—did not altogether spare even the buildings, alleging that rooks
were best banished by pulling down their nests: in short, made a very
complete practical reformation through all the more important provinces.
This was done by the populace, with the countenance and help of a party of
the nobility and gentry; and the regent, Mary de Guise, who was firm in
the old faith, in vain strove to stem the torrent. Obtaining troops from
France, she did indeed maintain for a time a resistance to the reforming
lords and their adherents. But they, again, were supported by some troops
from Elizabeth of England, whose interest it was to protestantise
Scotland; and so the Reformation got the ascendency. Mary the Regent sunk
into the grave, just about the time that her faith came to its final and
decisive ruin within her daughter’s dominions.
This change may be considered as
having been completed in August 1560, when an irregular parliament, or
assembly of the Estates of the kingdom, abolished the jurisdiction of the
pope, proscribed the mass under the severest penalties, and approved of a
Confession of Faith resembling the articles which had been established in
England by Edward VI. The chief feature of the new system was, that each
parish should have its own pastor, elected by the people, or at least a
reader to read the Scriptures and common prayers. While thus essentially
presbyterian, there was a trace of episcopal arrangements in the
appointment of ten superintendents (one of whom, however, was a
layman), whose duty it should be to go about and see that the ordinary
clergy did their duty. The great bulk of the possessions and revenues of
the old church fell into the hands of the nobles, or remained with nominal
bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries, who continued formally to occupy
their ancient places in parliament, while the presbyterian clergy were
insufficient in number, and in general very poorly supported.
‘Lo here,’ then, ‘a nation born in
one day; yea, moulded into one congregation, and sealed as a fountain with
a solemn oath and covenant!’ So exclaims a clerical writer a hundred years
later; and we, who live two hundred years still further onward, may well
echo the words. But a little while ago, there were priests, with vestments
of ancient and gorgeous form, saying mass in churches, which were the only
elegant structures in the country. The name of the pope was a word to bow
at. Confession was one of the duties of life. Barefooted friars wandered
about in the enjoyment of universal reverence. Any gentleman going out
with his sovereign on a military expedition, would have been thought
liable to every evil under the sun, and altogether a scandalous person, if
he did not beforehand obtain pardon for his sins from the Grayfriars, and
leave in their hands his most valuable possessions, including the very
titles of his estate, which he might hope to get back if he survived; but
otherwise, he well knew all would go to the enriching of these same
friars, who were under vows to live in perpetual poverty. The king himself
sought for his highest religious comfort in pilgrimising to St Duthae’s
shrine in Ross-shire, or to the chapel of our Lady of Loretto, at
Musselburgh. The bishop of Aberdeen felt a solacement in the hour of
death, in the trust that his bowels would be buried, as he requested, in
the Black-friars Monastery in Edinburgh. So lately as 1547, the Scotch,
fighting with the English at Pinkie, called out reproachful names to them,
on the score of their having deserted the ancient faith. But here is now
Scotland also converted, and that as it were in a day, from all those old
reverences and observances, and taken possession of by a totally new set
of ideas. The Bible in the vulgar tongue has been suddenly laid open to
them. Their minds, earnest and reflecting, though unenlightened, have
been impressed beyond description by the tale of miraculous history which
it unfolds, and the deeply touching scheme for effecting the salvation of
man which the theologian constructs from it. They feel as if they had got
hold of something of priceless value, and in comparison with which all the
forms and rites of medieval Christianity are as dust and rubbish. The
Evangel, the True Religion, as they earnestly called it, is
henceforth all in all with this poor and homely, but resolute people.
Nothing inconsistent therewith can be listened to for a moment. Scarcely
can a dissentient be permitted to live in the country. The state, too,
must maintain this system, and this system alone, or it is no state for
them. Above all, the errors of Popery must be unsparingly put down. The
mass is idolatry: God, in his Book, says that idolatry is a sin to be
visited with the severest judgments; therefore, if you wish to avoid
judgments, you must extinguish the mass. Even modified forms and rituals
which have been preserved by English Protestantism, as calculated to raise
or favour a spirit of devotion, and maintain a decency in worship, are
here regarded as but the rags of Rome, and spurned with nearly the same
vehemence as the mass itself. Scotland will have nothing but a preacher to
expound, and say a prayer. That, with the Bible in the hands of the
people, is enough for her. No hierarchy does she require to maintain order
in the church. Let the ministers meet in local courts and in General
Assembly, and settle everything by equal votes. Bishops and archbishops
are a popish breed, who must, if possible, be kept at a distance.
Even one who may now take more
charitable and lenient views can scarcely fail to sympathise with, yea,
admire, this little out-of-the-way nation, in seeing it dictate and do
thus against the might of an ancient institution of such imposing
dimensions as the Romish Church. And to do it, too, in the teeth of their
own ruling power, such as it was. And all so effectually, that from that
hour to this, Rome, in all her back-surgings upon the ground she lost in
the sixteenth century, was never able to put Scottish Protestantism once
in the slightest danger. Undoubtedly, if there be merit in a faithful
contending for what is felt to be all-important truth, it was a worthy
thing, and one that shewed there was some good metal in the constitution
of the Scottish mind. It could not surprise one that a people who acted
thus, should also prove to be a valiant and constant people under physical
difficulties; that they should make wonderful results out of a poor soil
and climate; that they should do some considerable things in the science
of thinking and in letters; and, above all, stand well to their own
opinions and ways, and to the maintenance of their political liberties and
national independence, frown, threaten, and drive at them who might.
It was so—and yet—for every
picture of noble humanity has its reverse—it is forced upon us that the
Scots were, at this very time, a fearfully rude and ignorant people. As
usual, they were so without having the least consciousness of it: their
greatest author of that age, George Buchanan, speaks in perfect earnest of
the refinement of his own time, in comparison with the barbarism
of former days. But, whatever the age might be relatively to past
ages, it was rude in itself. The Scotland of that day was ruder than the
England of that day, ruder than many other European states. Few persons
could read or write. Few knew aught beyond their daily calling. Men
carried weapons, and were apt to use them on light occasion. The lords,
and the rich generally, exercised enormous oppression upon the poor. The
government was a faction of nobles, as against all the rest. When a man
had a suit at law, he felt he had no chance without using ‘influence.’ Was
he to be tried for an offence ?—his friends considered themselves bound to
muster in arms round the court to see that he got fair-play; that is, to
get him off unharmed if they could. Men were accustomed to violence in all
forms, as to their daily bread. The house of a man of consideration was a
kind of castle: at the least, it was a tall narrow tower, with a grated
door and a wall of defence. No one in those days had any general
conceptions regarding the processes of nature. They saw the grass grow and
their bullocks feed, and thought no more of it. Any extraordinary natural
event, as an eclipse of the sun or an earthquake, still more a comet,
affected them as an immediate expression of a frowning Providence. The
great diseases, such as pestilence, which arose in consequence of their
uncleanly habits and the wide-spread famines from which they often
suffered, appeared to them as divine chastisements; not perhaps for the
sins of those who suffered—which would have been comparatively reasonable
- but probably for the sins of a ruler who did not suffer at all. The
ruling class knew no more of a just public economy than the poor. Through
absurd attempts to raise the value of coin
by statute, the
Scotch pound had fallen to a fraction of its original worth. By ridiculous
endeavours to control markets, and adjust exportation and importation,
mercantile freedom was paralysed, and penury and scarcity among the poor
greatly increased. The good plant of Knowledge not being yet cultivated,
its weed-precursor, Superstition, largely prevailed. Bearded men believed
that a few muttered words could take away and give back the milk of their
cattle. An archbishop expected to be cured of a deadly ailment by a charm
pronounced by an ignorant countrywoman. The forty-six men who met as the
first General Assembly, and drew from the Scriptures the Confession of
Faith which they handed down as stereotyped truth to after-generations,
were every one of them not more fully persuaded of the soundness of any of
the doctrines of that Confession, than they were of the reality of
sorcery, and felt themselves not more truly called upon by the Bible to
repress idolatry than to punish witches. They were good men, earnest, and
meaning well to God and man; but they were men of the sixteenth century,
ignorant, and rough in many of their ways.
While, then, we shall see great
occasion to admire the hardy valour with which this people achieved their
deliverance from bondage, we must also be prepared for finding them full
of vehement intolerance towards all challenge of their own dogmas and all
adherence to alien forms of faith. We shall find them utterly incapable of
imagining a conscientious dissent, much less of allowing for and
respecting it. We must be prepared to see them—while repudiating one set
of superstitious incrustations upon the original simple gospel—working it
out on their own part in creeds, plats, covenants, and church institutions
generally, full of mere human logic and device, but yet assumed to be as
true as if a divine voice had spoken and framed them, breathing war and
persecution towards all other systems, and practically operating as a
tyranny only somewhat less formidable than that which had been put away.