21 Knox, i. 245-252. The Pasquil is in Knox, iv., in two editions, 1556 and 1558.

22 Early English Text Society, 1872. Edited by Dr Murray.

23 Gude and Godlie Ballatis. Edited by the late Dr Mitchell for the Scottish Text Society, 1897. Whether one of the brothers, Robert, was author of the 'Complaynt' or not, is disputed, op. cit., xxv, xxvi.

24 Knox, i. 267, 268.

25 Knox, i. 253-255.

26 Martyn to Mary Tudor, June 11, 1557.

27 Calendar, i. 200, 201.

Calendar, i. 198.

28 Council to Wharton, July 29, 1557. Tytler, v. 24. Not calendared by Thorpe or Bain.

30 Knox, i. 256; Lesley, 491.

32 Knox, i. 256.

34 Hume Brown, Knox, i. 205-212.

36 January 22, 1559. Keith, i. 364-368. 38 Teulet, i. 302-311.

40 Hay Fleming, p. 206, citing 'Foreign Calendar, Elizabeth,' 1564-65, 315, 320, 325.

CHAPTER III.

THE WARS OF THE CONGREGATION.

ALMOST at the very time of the royal marriage the clerical party in Scotland achieved their last, their most cruel, and most impolitic act of persecution. After the making of the band of the Congregation, in December 1557, there had arisen a controversy, courteous in terms, between Archbishop Hamilton and the aged Earl of Argyll. A preacher named Douglas was entertained by the Earl: the Archbishop remonstrated, and Argyll replied. He knew that Hamilton was unpopular with the clergy "for non-pursuing of poor simple Christians"; he knew that if the Archbishop listened to his clerical advisers, there would be burnings. Against these he warned his correspondent. The letters passed between the end of March and the first week in April 1558.1 As Argyll's character has not been shown in a favourable light, it is fair to say that at this period neither he nor his associates can well have been moved by other than honest convictions. Mary Tudor was still on the English throne: nothing now was to be gained from England, unless on the expectation of Mary's death and the return of Protestantism under Elizabeth. In Mr Froude's opinion, however, "the gaunt and hungry nobles of Scotland, careless, most of them, of God or Devil, were eyeing the sleek and well-fed clergy like a pack of famished wolves." The warning of Argyll was unheard by the Archbishop. On a date variously given, but apparently between April 20 and April 28, 1558, one Walter Milne, a very aged man, and a married priest, was tried for heresy, and burned at St Andrews.2

Untrustworthy as is Pitscottie, his word may perhaps be taken for what occurred in his own day, almost in his own parish. "The said Walter Mylie [Milne] was warming him in a poor woman's house in Dysart, and teaching her the commandments of God to her and

MARTYRDOM OF MILNE.

DISCONTENTS (1558). 43

66

her bairns, and learning her how she should instruct her house, to bring up her bairns in the fear of God." This duty, despite the Archbishop's Catechism, had been flagrantly neglected by the clergy in general. To arrest such a man, in such a task, as a seducer of the people," and to burn him under forms of the most dubious justice, naturally, and righteously, caused "a new fervency among the whole people." A cairn of stones was raised on the site where Milne had suffered. The populace was now sincerely stirred, and Milne, as he had hoped, was the last who died for Protestantism in Scotland. The act was cowardly and merciless. Hamilton might have proceeded against Argyll. He preferred to burn a poor, aged, and decrepit man for teaching the Commandments, and for having, in Beaton's time, married and abjured his orders.

A strange event, occurring in September 1558, did not add to the popularity of France. On their return to Scotland, at Dieppe, the Commissioners for the marriage sickened, the Bishop of Orkney died, and by November 29 Rothes, Cassilis, and Fleming had not yet left France, where they later succumbed. The Lord James Stewart is said never to have recovered his health completely. According to Pitscottie, he was "hanged by the heels by the mediciners, to cause the poison to drop out.* A similar tale is told about Cardan's treatment of Archbishop Hamilton. Naturally, poison was suspected; but the fatal ball at Stirling, in recent years, proves that accident and oysters may be the cause of similar calamities. The temper both of the populace and the gentry was exhibited in August and September. Paul Methven, a preacher later suspended for adultery, had been summoned to trial for heresy. But the gentry of his faction gathered to support him, as when Knox was summoned in 1556, and a riot seemed probable. The trial was postponed to the beginning of September. Apparently not only Methven, but Willock and other preachers were included in the summons, and their armed defenders entered the Regent's presence, protesting, "Shall we suffer this any longer? No, madam; it shall not be. And therewith every man put on his steel bonnet." The Regent addressed them falteringly in her broken English, "Me knew nothing of this proclamation." If Buchanan and Lesley are wellinformed, the new summons against the preachers coincided with the Feast of St Giles (September 1). The old "idol," which had been carried off, had not been replaced, but a new idol, "Young

44

PROTESTS OF THE CONGREGATION (1558).

St Giles," was borne in procession. The Regent accompanied it, but, as she was dining in a burgess's house, while St Giles was being carried back to his shrine, a riot arose. "The hearts of the Brethren were wonderfully inflamed," and the rascal multitude now loved mischief more than they feared saints. The priests were scattered by the mob, St Giles was broken to pieces, and though Buchanan says that there was no bloodshed, the nerves of the clergy were shaken seriously. The Bishop of Galloway, a rhymer and, Knox says, a gambler, died of emotion. "The articles of his creed were: "I refer! Decart you: ha, ha, the Four Kings, and all made, the Devil go with it, it is but a knave!" That "belly-god," Panter, the learned Bishop of Ross, died in October. The Church was seriously weakened by his decease.

In England the loss of Calais was followed by the death of Mary Tudor (November 17, 1558). Elizabeth was naturally expected to bring England back to a creed which would be sympathetic to the Lords of the Congregation. They were strong in the popular favour, England would soon be their ally, they had organised their forces, had sent emissaries through the land to enrol adherents, and hoped to win their ends, if not peacefully, then by force of arms. Their demands for right to use common prayers in English were accepted, for the time, by Mary of Guise, provisionally; they might "use themselves godly," and apparently might celebrate the sacrament in their own way if they would abstain from public meetings in Edinburgh and Leith. All this till "some uniform order might be established by a Parliament." 8 Parliament met on November 29, and decreed the crown matrimonial to the Dauphin. The Lords of the Congregation put in a letter on their own affairs, but it is not recorded; Knox says that their enemies refused to let it appear in the register. The Protestants observed that, in the existing state of the penal laws, their immortal souls were endangered by submission to "the damnable idolatry and intolerable abuses of the Papistical Church." In addressing members of that Church, their tone was remote from conciliatory. They requested that the Heresy laws should be suspended till a General Council decided "all controversies in religion," a date obviously remote. Secondly, lest this should seem to "set all men at liberty to live as they list," they asked for a secular judge, with the ordinary and necessary provisions, unknown to inquisitorial proceedings, for the defence of the accused. They appealed to the

QUENTIN KENNEDY.

45

Scriptures as the sole criterion of what was, or was not, heresy. But who was to interpret the Scriptures?

The Regent, in these difficult circumstances, temporised, and the evangelical Lords put in a protest, demanding security from persecution, and proclaiming themselves blameless, if tumults arose, "and if it shall chance that abuses be violently reformed." 10 There are hints of open resistance in these documents; but it is clear that, unless the petitions were granted, force was the only remedy. The state of affairs justified even civil war it was intolerable that so great a part of the commonwealth as the protesting Lords represented should be forced into hypocrisy by dread of the stake. In modern times a mere "Disruption" would have ensued. In the sixteenth century, compromise, or peaceful secession, was practically impossible. One religion must conquer, and abolish, or try to abolish, the other. Even in their petitions the Protestants denounced the religion of their fathers and of their queen as "damnable." The two hostile forms of Christianity could not live together in one country. The quarrel must be decided by the sword.

It certainly could not be decided by public disputations. That method was attempted. While the early spring of 1559 was being spent in the negotiations for the Peace of Cateau Cambresis, a Catholic scholar was using his pen to aid his cause. Quentin Kennedy, a younger son of the second Earl of Cassilis by his wife, a daughter of Archibald, Earl of Argyll, was a good representative of the Church. Kennedy had studied at St Andrews and Paris, and was vicar of Penpont. In 1558 he published his 'Compendius Tractive,' a reply to the Protestants. He argues that the Scriptures are the witnesses to the will and purpose of God, but merely the witnesses, not the judge. The witnesses must be examined and cross-examined, and the Church alone is the judge, where difficulties of interpretation arise. "The wicked opinion of some private factious men . . . sets at nought the interpretation of ancient General Councils." It is in vain to say, "Why should not every man read the Scripture to seek out his own salvation?" Every man is not competent. How can every private reader decide, for instance, as to doubted questions of text and rendering? There is no opinion but some text may be wrested into its justification. To ask (as Wallace did) to be judged by the Scriptures is to ask an impossibility.11 Such, with copious rein