LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
0\
V
MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON
THE SCOTLAND OF MART STUART
MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON
AND
THE SCOTLAND OF MAEY STUABT
A HISTORY
BY
JOHN SKELTON
*
ADVOCATE J DOCTOR OF LAWS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
AUTHOR OF THE ESSAYS OF SHIRLEY
VOL. I.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBUEGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXXVII
v/1
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
PAGE
Original authorities for a history of the period, . xi
Spottiswoode and Calderwood, .... xiii
The State Papers, . . . . . xv
Use of the State Papers by the earlier historians, . xv
Collections of State Papers, ..... xvi
Sir William Cecil's Collections, .... xxiii
Comparative value of original documents, . . xxiii
Knox on Mary and her mother, .... xxv
Statements that are primd facie incredible, . . xxvi
Authorities not contemporary, .... xxxiv
Plan of the work, ...... xxxvi
Maitland's political and religious attitude to be ap-
proved, ........ xxxviii
BOOK I.
FROM MAITLAND'S BIRTH TILL MARY
STUART'S RETURN TO SCOTLAND.
CHAPTER I.
LE THING TON AND THE LAMMERMUIR.
Birth of Maitland, . .
The country of the Lammermuirs, . . .
vi Contents.
Tliirlstane and the Lauder valley, .... 5
The Castle of Lethington, 8
Thomas the Khymer, . . . . . 12
The " Auld Maitland " of Border Song, . . . 13
Sir Eichard Maitlaud, . . . . . . 15
His complaints of the time, . . . . . 22
His advice to his son, . . . . . . 26
Thomas Maitland, . . . . . . 27
John Maitland, the Chancellor, .... 32
The Duke of Lauderdale, 34
William Maitland's early life, . . . . 35
CHAPTER II.
THE SCOTLAND OF MARY STUART.
Edinburgh from the Blackford Hill, . . . 37
The Edinburgh of Maitland, 39
Scotland in the sixteenth century, . . . . 43
Xumbers of the people, . . . . 43
The Borderers, ....... 47
The Redshanks, . . . . . . 55
The Lowlanders, . . . . . . . 64
Destruction of the great woods, . . . . 65
The monastic life, . . . . . . 67
The burgh life, 71
Trade and commerce, . . . . . . 72
Mansions of the nobles, . . . . . 75
Agriculture, . 79
Love of sport, . . . * . -. . . 80
Wild animals, 81
Royal hunting-parties, . . . . . . 85
The Universities, . ' . . . . . 86
Melville at St Andrews, 90
The introduction of printing, . . . . 91
Scottish Literature, . . . . . . 93
The Romance Writers, . . . . . . 94
The Annalists, ....... 97
The Didactic Poets, . . . . .103
Sir David Lindsay and the Reformation, . . 112
Contents. vii
CHAPTEE III.
THE FEUDAL SOCIETY.
Decline of Feudalism, . . . . . .118
The great feudal houses, . . . . .120
Comyn, . . . . . . . .121
Douglas, 133
Maitland's contemporaries, . . . . . 143
Arran Glencairn Argyll, . . . . .144
The Earl of Huntly, 146
The Earl of Morton, . . . . . .148
Parliament and the officials, . . . . .152
CHAPTEE IV.
POLITICS AND RELIGION.
The political position, . . . . . .155
The English claim to superiority, . . . . 156
The Scottish anarchy, . . . . . .158
The Stuarts, 160
The claim renewed by Henry VIII., . . .162
Sadler at Edinburgh, 163
Failure of the negotiations, . . . . .165
Vengeance of Henry, . . . . . .168
Eeligion, . . 173
Principles of the Eeformation, . . . . 174
St Andrews the ecclesiastical capital, . . . 176
The earliest reformers, . . . . . .182
Progress of dissent, . . . . - . 184
James V. and Sadler, . . . . . .185
Character of Cardinal Beaton, . . . . 187
Forces which shaped the Scottish Eeformation, . 189
The Martyrs, 190
The Gude and Godly Ballates, . . . .195
State of the Church, . . . . . . 198
lumbers of the clergy, . ... . . . 200
Immorality, idleness, ignorance, .... 202
viii Contents.
CHAPTER V.
THE EVE OF THE REFORMATION.
Early notices of Maitland, 206
First controversy with Knox, .... 208
John Knox,
Maitland as Secretary to the Regent, . . . 213
Marie of Lorraine, . . . . . .214
The Congregation of Jesus Christ, . . . 215
Religious animosity and political disaffection, . . 216
Knox's position, . . . . . .219
Maitland quits the Dowager, . . . . 221
Maitland 's position, . . . . . .223
Death of Marie of Lorraine, . . . . .225
CHAPTER VI.
THE REVOLUTION.
The glory of architecture, . . . . . 227
The medieval churches of Scotland, . . . 228
The " fiery besom," . . . . . . 230
Responsibility of Knox, . . . . .235
Deposition of Marie of Lorraine, . - . . 239
Failure of the Congregation, . . . .240
Knox and Elizabeth, . . . V . . 242
Maitland despatched for English aid, . . 245
Sadler at Berwick, . . . . . . 246
Anxiety about Maitland, . . . . .250
The Convention of Berwick, . . . . 254
The Siege of Leith and Treaty of Edinburgh, . . 254
Cecil in Scotland, . . . . . .' 256
Assistance rendered by Maitland, . - . . 256
The Parliament of 1560, 260
Maitland opens the Parliament, . . . 261
The Confession of Faith, . . . . .263
Religious divisions Knox and Maitland, . . 265
Contents. ix
CHAPTEE VII.
MAR Y STUART AND ELIZABETH TUDOR.
Mary's claim to the English succession, . . . 269
Struggle between Mary and Elizabeth, . . . 270
English poets on Mary and Elizabeth, . . . 271
Character of Elizabeth, . . . .273
Character of Mary Contemporary evidence, . . 276
Sir Ealph Sadler, 277
Early letters from France, . . . . . 281
Thomas Eandolph, 284
John Knox, 286
Sir Francis Knollys, . . . . . .287
N. White, . 289
The scene at Jedburgh, 292
The true force and charm of Mary's character, . 294
CHAPTEE VIII.
THE MINISTER OF MARY STUART.
Mary returns to Scotland, . . . . .302
She allies herself with the moderate party, . . 304
She appeals to Maitland, . . . . .307
Difficulties of his position, ..... 308
Charges of inconsistency. . . . . .318
The Chamaeleon of George Buchanan, . . . 319
The Machiavelli of Eichard Bannatyne, . . 320
Modern Historians, . . . . . .321
Character of Maitland, 322
Speeches and letters, . . . . . .328
Devotion of his friends Mary Fleming, . . 330
The gift of ruling men, . . . . .333
Maitland's aims, . . . . . . .335
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
"VTO period of Scottish history has been pro-
d.uctive of more difference of opinion among
historical writers than the reign of Mary. There
is hardly a single event, from the day of her
birth to the day of her death, which has not
been the occasion of keen and even vehement
debate. I have sometimes felt that the con-
clusions of competent students have varied so
widely because certain preliminary questions
have not been sufficiently considered. What
are the original authorities for Mary's reign ?
and what is their comparative value ? The
latter question is, of course, the more import-
ant of the two ; yet even the former is not
entirely free from dubiety. Excluding one or
two English and foreign writers, whose sources
b
Xll
Introductory Chapter.
of original information about Scottish affairs were
obviously extremely meagre, the contemporary
works which are really valuable appear to me to
be these : ' The Chronicles of Scotland,' by Robert
Lindsay of Pitscottie ; ' History of the Refor-
mation in Scotland/ by John Knox (Laing's
edition, 1846); ' Rerum Scoticarum Historia/
by George Buchanan ; ' The Complaynt of Scot-
land ;' 1 ' Memoirs of Sir James Melvil of Halhill '
(London, 1683); 'Journal of the Transactions
in Scotland, 1570-73,' by Richard Bannatyne
(Edinburgh, 1806); 'The Autobiography and
Diary of James MelvilT (Edinburgh, 1842);
'Historical Memoirs,' by Lord Herries (Abbots-
ford Club, 1834); 'The Historic and Life of
King James the Sext, 1566-1596' (Bannatyne
Club, 1825); 'A Diurnal of Remarkable Occur-
rents' (Maitland Club, 1833); "The Diarey of
Robert Birrel" ('Fragments of Scottish History/
1 An admirable analysis of
The Complaynt of Scotland
is given by the late Dr Ross, in
his very suggestive volume on
Scottish History and Literature
(1884), pp. 247-292. The au-
thor is unknown ; all that can
be affirmed about him is that he
was one of those representatives
of the reforming Catholicism
who stood by Marie of Lorraine
while she pursued a moderate
and pacific policy, an advocate
of the French alliance, and a
native of the Border counties.
See Dr Murray's edition of
The Complaynt (1872).
Introductory Chapter. xiii
by Sir J. G. Dalzell: Edinburgh, 1798 which
contains also the contemporary narrative of the
battle of Pinkie, " out of the Parsonage of St
Mary's Hill in London, this xxviii of January
1548"); 'De origine, moribus, et rebus gestis
Scotorum,' by John Leslie (Eome, 1578); 'The
History of Mary Stewart,' by Claude Nau (Edin-
burgh, 1883); 'History of the Church of Scot-
land,' by the Eight Eev. John Spottiswoode
(Edinburgh/ 1851); 'History of the Kirk of
Scotland,' by Mr David Calderwood (Edinburgh,
1842); 'Ancient Scottish Poems,' from the MS. of
George Bannatyne (Edinburgh, 1770); 'Ancient
Scottish Poems,' from the MS. of Sir Eichard
Maitland (Pinkerton, 1786) ; ' Scottish Poems of
the Sixteenth Century' (Dalzell, 1801); and the
official records of parochial, municipal, and eccle-
siastical bodies, which have been published by
the Spalding, Maitland, Bannatyne, and other
Clubs.
Some of these authorities can hardly perhaps
in strictness be regarded as original or contem-
porary. Spottiswoode's father, no doubt, was
an office-bearer in the Eeformed Church from
the first ; but Spottiswoode himself was not
born till 1565. Yet whoever carefully examines
XIV
Introductory Chapter.
his narrative will come to the conclusion that
much of his information had been obtained at
first hand from men who had been eye-wit-
nesses of the events which he records. The
same may be said of Calderwood, although
Calderwood was not more than twelve years
old when Mary was executed. Calderwood's
temper was unhappy ; he was, in fact, so dour,
so irresponsive, so obstinately opinionative, that
he ultimately succeeded in alienating his warm-
est friends ; l but he was a man of immense in-
dustry ; he had collected, at one time or other,
nearly all the pamphlets and broadsheets on
ecclesiastical matters, which formed so large a
portion of the current literature of the latter half
of the sixteenth century ; and he has thus pre-
served (though it is true that he borrowed largely
from Knox, Bannatyne, and Melville) a valuable
mass of historical documents which would other-
wise have been lost. On these grounds it ap-
pears to me that we are justified in regarding
1 "He was recommended to
the first commodious room.
Likely he shall not in haste
be provided. The man is sixty-
six years old ; his utterance is
unpleasant ; his carriage, about
the meetings of the Assembly
and before, has made him less
considerable to divers of his
former benefactors." (Baillie's
Letters, 1641.)
Introductory Chapter.
xv
both Spottiswoode and Calderwood as original,
if not strictly contemporary, authorities. 1
These are the principal contemporary authori-
ties ; but there are other writings which are
among the most valuable original contributions
to the history of the time the State Papers.
The State Papers, which are accessible to us,
were for the most part a sealed book to the con-
temporary historians. It is a mistake, however,
to imagine that the more important of these inval-
uable documents have only recently been made
available for the purposes of historical research.
For nearly two centuries the extraordinary inte-
rest of the letters and other documents deposited
in the great public libraries has been recognised
by the Scottish antiquary. Mackenzie, in his
' Writers of the Scottish Nation,' the successive
volumes of which were published between 1708
and 1722, acknowledges his obligations to " Mr
1 That the authors of A Diur-
nal of Remarkable Occurrents,
Historic of King James the
Sext, and Birrel's Diarey were
living during the reigns of Mary
and her son does not, I think,
admit of dispute ; but the pre-
cise manner in which these con-
temporary records were pre-
pared, and by whom, is not
known ; and the absence of
any direct information on these
points is calculated of course to
impair their value. The " mem-
oirs" attributed to Lord Herries
are of doubtful authenticity ;
they have admittedly been re-
cast from an earlier manuscript.
xvi Introductory CJiapter.
Crawfurd's Collections from the Cotton Library
in the Lawyers' Library at Edinburgh ; " and he
prints in the article entitled " William Mait-
land " three letters by the Secretary, taken from
the Crawford transcripts. Bishop Keith, whose
history appeared in 1734, refers to the same
collection, "The Faculty of Advocates have in
their fine library at Edinburgh a tolerably good
collection of papers transcribed from the Cotton
Library in England;" and he goes on to say that
he proposes to place in the same library the copies
of letters written in the French language which
he had obtained from the Scottish College at
Paris. (It does not appear that the intention
was carried out ; the obliging keeper of the
Advocates' Library assures me that, so far as he
is aware, the papers to which the Bishop alludes
have not been preserved.) Principal Eobert-
son's ' History of Scotland ' was published in
1759, and in the preface to the first edition he
refers to the Crawfurd Collection ("the library
of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh con-
tains not only a large collection of original
papers relating to Scotland, but copies of others
no less curious, which have been preserved by
Sir Robert Cotton, or are extant in the public
Introductory Chapter. xvii
offices in England") as well as to another col-
lection, in the possession of Mr Goodall, the
acute critic of the Casket Letters, who was
one of the keepers of the Library. "Mr Goodall,
though he knew my sentiments with regard to
the conduct and character of Queen Mary to be
extremely different from his own, communicated
to me a volume of manuscripts in his possession,
which contains a great number of valuable
papers copied from the originals in the Cot-
tonian Library and Paper Office, by the late
Reverend Mr Crawfurd, Regius Professor of
Church History in the University of Edinburgh."
Both of these collections are now in the Ad-
vocates' Library. The earlier was made for
David Crawfurd of Drumsoy (mainly by Robert
Robertson, A.M., about the year 1707), who
presented it to the Faculty of Advocates. Mr
David Crawfurd was the Historiographer-Royal,
and the editor of the well-known ' Memoirs of
the Affairs of Scotland/ which was published in
1706. In the preface to the version of the
' Historic of King James the Sext,' printed for
the Bannatyne Club, the editor (Thomas Thom-
son?) gives an account of the circumstances
attending the " downright forgery," of which
xviii Introductory Chapter.
Crawfurd was accused when he asserted that his
volume of ' Memoirs ' was taken verbatim from
an authentic manuscript of the period ; and he
adds, " Had Mr Matthew Crawford, the contem-
porary professor of Ecclesiastical History in the
University of Edinburgh, lived to publish his
projected work on the History of Queen Mary,
his exposure of these ' Memoirs ' would have
been in a very different tone from that of Bishop
Keith," Keith having alluded to " the consid-
erable variations between the manuscript and
the print " with a mildness unusual (and ap-
parently unappreciated) in antiquarian circles.
Whatever his other merits may have been, Mr
Matthew Crawford's handwriting is extremely
illegible, and compares unfavourably with the
admirable caligraphy of Mr Robert Robertson.
The copies appear to have been made by the
professor himself "from several repositories in
England " during a visit he paid to London in
1728. The copies of Sir Nicolas Throckmorton's
letters, however, were obtained as early as Jan-
uary 1725 " from the originals which were lent
me by Andrew Spreul, writer in Edinburgh ; "
and several letters from Queen Elizabeth " in
the Bishop of Ely's library at Cambridge," were
Introductory Chapter. xix
transcribed for him by " Mr Thomas Baker, fel-
low of St John's College, a curious antiquary."
I have gone carefully through these collections
(the David Crawfurd Collection is in three vol-
umes, the Matthew Crawford in two), and it
appears to me that in either case the selection
of documents was made with much skill and
judgment ; comparatively few papers of first-
rate importance have been omitted ; the letters
of Eandolph, Throckmorton, and Knollys, which
are of immense value to any historian of the
reign of Mary, are given at great length, while
there are many interesting letters from Mary,
Elizabeth, Cecil, Sadler, Lethington, and others,
as well as a selection from the contemporary
pasquils, the invectives of George Buchanan
and the ballads of " Tom Truth." When to these
are added the original papers collected by James
Anderson, Postmaster-General for Scotland, and
published by him in 1728, it is obvious that no
inconsiderable proportion of the most valuable
documents in the great public libraries must have
been well known to the Scotch antiquarian writers
of the early part of the eighteenth century.
The industry of these early adventurers is the
more creditable when the difficulties they had to
xx Introductory Chapter.
contend with are recognised. The State Papers
had not then been calendared, there was not
even an inventory. A catalogue of the Cottonian
Library had been printed at Oxford in 1696 ; but
it was very imperfect ; and it was only in 1802
that the elaborate catalogue now in use was
issued. 1 Until quite recently, indeed, little or
nothing was done to facilitate the use of the
invaluable treasures which were hidden away in
public offices and private libraries. Anderson's
Collections were not printed until 1728. A
selection from the papers at Hatfield, made by
Samuel Haynes, the rector, was published in
1740. Another volume, containing papers of a
later date, selected by William Murdin, appeared
in 1759. The State Papers and Letters of Sir
Kalph Sadler, in three volumes, edited by
Walter Scott, were published in 1807. Among
several important collections, issued during the
last fifty years, the selection made by Thomas
1 The Manuscripts in the Cot-
tonian Library were deposited
in fourteen presses, over which
were placed the husts of the
twelve Caesars, and of Cleopatra
and Faustina. Hence the form
of reference which is apt to
puzzle a novice e.g., "Titus,"
" Vespasian," &c. Sir Robert
Cotton, who was one of a band
of well-known antiquaries
Joscelin, Lambard, Camden,
Noel was born 22d Jan. 1570.
Introductory Chapter. xxi
Wright in his ' Queen Elizabeth and her Times '
(1838) is perhaps the most useful to students of
Scottish history. Of the official Calendars, pub-
lished by authority of the Master of the Eolls,
it is impossible to speak too highly ; and the
Scottish Calendar, covering the period from
1509 to 1589, edited by Markham John Thorpe,
is one of the very best of the series. The first
part of the Calendar of the Hatfield manuscripts
has been published quite recently (1883). It
has been prepared with great care, and the
abstracts of all the more important documents
are unusually full and accurate. In the Fac-
similes of the National MSS. of England, Scot-
land, and Ireland (twelve volumes) to which I
have elsewhere referred, many interesting docu-
ments illustrating the Mary Stuart period have
been excellently reproduced by the process
known as photo-zincography. The two bulky
volumes which contain selections from the
Register of the Privy Council during the reign
of Mary were prepared under the supervision of
the late Mr Hill Burton; but most of the minutes
of general historical interest had been previously
published by Keith and others. It may be said
with truth that nearly every document, throwing
XXII
Introductory Chapter.
any light upon the most interesting events of
the sixteenth century in Scotland, has now been
made fairly accessible to the historical student.
One or two may have been overlooked ; the
treasures of the Vatican have not yet been
exhausted ; x but, speaking generally, little re-
mains to be done. The destruction of the
muniments of the Scottish Colleges in France
during the Eevolution was a real calamity ; it
was in the Scottish Colleges at Douay and Paris
that the letters and reports of Mary Stuart's
envoys were stored ; and it was from their
archives that any complete explanation of the
Darnley and Bothwell episodes might have been
looked for. But the Colleges were sacked during
the Eevolution, and the libraries dispersed,
" the most valuable MSS." we are told, " being
sold by the quintal or burnt." 2 The Vandals of
the Revolution cared for none of these things ;
and it is highly improbable that any of the
valuable manuscripts which were " sold by the
quintal" are now in existence.
1 See the Narratives of
Scottish Catholics under Mary
Stuart and James VI. , edited
by William Forbes Leslie, S.J.
(1885).
2 Lord Herries's Memoirs.
Preface, p. xxv (Abbotsford
Club, 1836).
Introductory Chapter. xxiii
No writer on the age of Mary can overestimate
his obligations to Sir William Cecil. Cecil was
the most industrious of English statesmen of the
first order. His activity, indeed, was almost
incredible. The papers which he left behind
him are widely distributed. They form no in-
considerable portion of the national records,
the State Papers connected with Mary and Eliza-
beth in the Library at Hatfield, in the Public
Record Office, in the Cottonian, Harleian, and
Lansdowne Collections at the British Museum,
drafted or endorsed by the great Lord Burleigh,
being among the most valuable we possess.
The comparative value of the letters of Ran-
dolph, Drury, Sadler, Throckmorton, Knollys,
and other correspondents of the English Secre-
tary will be dealt with hereafter, in connection
more particularly with the inquiry into the
genuineness of the Casket Letters ; but I may
say here that it has been too much the custom
to regard " original authorities " with unreason-
ing reverence, and to accept without question
whatever is found in their pages. The narrative
of a contemporary is not conclusive. It must
be submitted to the ordinary critical tests before
it can be allowed to pass muster. This rule is
xxiv Introductory Chapter.
of general application ; but it applies with special
force for various reasons to the writers of the
sixteenth century. Society was divided into
two hostile camps ; and those in the one re-
garded those in the other with a peculiar energy
of dislike. In intestine strife the usages and
courtesies of war are too often neglected ; when
civil dissensions are intensified by theological
animosities, the conflict attains the maximum
of bitterness. There is barely one of the writers
I have named on whose unverified testimony it
is safe to rely. Lindsay of Pitscottie is re-
garded by many (to some extent unjustly, I
think) as the most credulous and unveracious
of Scottish annalists ; but Knox, for one, was as
credulous as Pitscottie. The Reformer's vigorous
understanding was clouded by superstition, and
warped by prejudice; and the dramatic force
and intense vitality of his narrative must not
blind us to the fact that he was a man of vio-
lent and unreasoning antipathies, who listened
greedily to idle rumour and the gossip of the
market-place.
The evidence of the writers of either faction
must therefore be subjected to the closest
scrutiny, and accepted with the utmost reserve.
Introductory Chapter. xxv
They must be compared one with another, and
the conflicting evidence carefully weighed. A
great German historian has demonstrated that
it is possible by careful analysis to learn where
a writer obtained the " facts " which he records ;
and every statement made by Knox or Buchanan
or Melville must, when necessary or practicable,
be traced back to its source. A contemporary
writer is truly valuable only for what he has
garnered from his own experience ; and his
authority 1 varies according to the nature of the
subject. Knox, for instance, was intimately
acquainted (no man more so) with the proceed-
ings of the Congregation and of the General
Assembly ; but he knew little, except from un-
friendly rumour, of what was doing at Court.
His relations with the Court were strained or
hostile ; during many months, indeed, he was
barely on speaking terms even with Moray ; and
he regarded Mary and her mother with the most
vindictive animosity. His eye was jaundiced ;
he saw men " as trees, walking " ; and the most
innocent natural phenomena were habitually
translated by his morbidly vivid imagination
into supernatural portents. Thus the unpleasant
fog, the thick easterly "haar," which hung over
xx vi Introductory Chapter.
the Forth when Mary landed at Leith, and to
which Edinburgh from its position is peculiarly
exposed, was the expression of divine displeasure
at her return. "The very face of heaven, the
time of her arrival, did manifestly speak what
comfort was brought unto this country with her
to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness, and all im-
piety ; for in the memory of man, that day of
the year, was never seen a more dolorous face
of the heaven, than was at her arrival. The sun
was not seen to shine two days before, nor two
days after. That forewarning gave God unto us;
but, alas ! the most part were blind." (Turning
to Brantome, we find that the frivolous French-
man saw nothing but a dense fog grand
brouillard). Again (to take another instance),
Knox asserts, or at least insinuates, that Marie
of Lorraine was the mistress of Cardinal Beaton,
and that her daughter was the mistress of
Chastelard; and modern historians have not been
averse to adopt these cruel calumnies on his
unsupported testimony. But the slightest ex-
amination shows that the Reformer was not in
a position in either case to speak with authority;
that he could have had no direct or personal
knowledge ; and that he merely repeated the
Introductory Chapter.
xxvn
malicious tittle-tattle of ignorant but industrions
gossips. 1
To sift in such cases truth from fable, the chaff
from the wheat, implies the exercise of what has
been called the historical faculty. The historical
faculty is an imposing name ; but the historical
faculty in this connection is only common-sense
applied to the past. And the common-sense
which is severely critical, not to say sceptical, is
the common-sense which must be brought to
bear upon the records of Mary's reign. Many
of the judicial depositions of the age, for in-
stance, were obtained by fraud or torture ; the
wholesome scepticism of common-sense teaches us
1 "At the first sight of the
Cardinal, she said, 'Welcome,
my lord ; is not the king dead 1 '
What moved her so to conjec-
ture, diverse men are of divers
judgments. Many whisper that
of old his part was in the pot,
and that the suspicion thereof
caused him to be inhibited the
Queen's company. However
the tidings liked her, she
mended with as great expedi-
tion of that daughter as ever
she did before of any son she
bare." History of the Refor-
mation, i. 92. The conversation
between Mary and her brother
as to Chastelard which Knox
records is obviously apocryphal.
(ii. 368.) Knox, of course,
was not present at the inter-
view, and he could not have
obtained his information from
Moray, for Moray was at that
time so devoted to Mary that
he incurred the resentment of
the Reformer. " In all that
time the Earl of Moray was so
fremmit (strange) to Johne
Knox, that neither by word
nor write was there any com-
munication betwixt them."
(ii. 461.)
xxviii Introductory Chapter.
to regard them with acute suspicion. They are
nearly, if not altogether, as valueless to the
cautious historian as the confessions of midnight
irregularities extorted by similar means from the
witches. He dismisses without hesitation the hal-
lucinations of the wretched creatures who figure
so largely in the records of the criminal and spir-
itual Courts of the Reformation ; but he has to
deal (and these, of course, require more delicate
handling) with moral as well as physical improb-
abilities. A story is related upon what appears to
be unimpeachable authority which is morally as
incredible as a moonlight ride on a broomstick.
Yet here again, neither timidly accepting nor
rashly rejecting the evidence produced, he must
allow his own judgment, his own sense of the fit-
ness of things and the unities of character, free
play. Hume has demonstrated with irrefutable
logic that it is always more probable that the
reporter was mistaken or misinformed than that
a miracle was worked ; and a moral miracle must
be nearly as incapable of proof as a physical.
To both we may apply the Roman proverb, /
would not believe it were it told me by Cato. 1
1 "When any one tells me | that he saw a dead man re-
Introductory Chapter.
xxix
It is necessary to insist on this view ; for there
are pitfalls on every side of the unwary traveller
in this difficult country ; and the consistent ap-
plication of the simple principle that it is more
probable that the reporter was somehow mis-
taken than that an event morally or intrin-
sically incredible occurred, tends unquestionably
to remove certain of the difficulties which beset
his path. To take one or two examples. There
is a report in Bannatyne's Transactions of a ser-
mon, in which the ministers of the Church are
exhorted to pray for the Queen, said to have
been preached in St Giles', on Sunday, 17th
June 1571, by Alexander Gordon, Bishop of
stored to life, I immediately
consider with myself whether
it be more probable that this
person should either deceive or
be deceived, or that the fact
which he relates should really
have happened. I weigh the
one miracle against the other ;
and according to the superi-
ority which I discover, I pro-
nounce my decision, and always
reject the greater miracle. If
the falsehood of his testimony
would be more miraculous than
the event which he relates,
then, and not till then, can he
pretend to command my belief
or opinion." On Human Un-
derstanding, section 10 Of
Miracles. Whately's " Histo-
ric Doubts concerning Napo-
leon Buonaparte," which was
meant as an answer to Hume,
is essentially a more sceptical
work than the essay on Mir-
acles ; for if human testimony
regarding the contemporary
events of the nineteenth cen-
tury may be so logically dis-
credited, what credit can be at-
tached to stories which belong
to a remote past and an age of
faith ?
XXX
Introductory CJiapter.
Galloway. 1 Gordon, who was a stanch sup-
porter of Mary, having been indeed on more
than one occasion her Commissioner to the Eng-
lish Court, is reported to have said, " And,
further, all sinners ought to be prayed for ; gif
we should not pray for sinners, for whom should
we pray, seeing that God came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. Saint
David was a sinner, and so was she ; Saint
David was an adulterer, and so is she ; Saint
David committed murder in slaying Urias for his
wife, and so did she ; but what is this to the
matter ; the more wicked that she be, her sub-
jects should pray for her to bring her to the
spirit of repentance." 2 This report of the Bish-
op's discourse has been used to show that even
her own partisans admitted that Mary was guilty
of the crimes with which she was charged. But
to impartial critics it seemed so incredible that
one of the Queen's own party should have pub-
licly accused his sovereign of murder and adul-
tery, that they preferred to hold that the pre-
1 It appears, however, that
the sermon could not have been
delivered on that day.
1 Journal of the Transac-
tions in Scotland, by Richard
Bannatyne. Edinburgh, 1806 :
p. 181.
Introductory Chapter.
xxxi
tended discourse was an invention of the enemy,
it bore, they maintained, " evident marks of
forgery." 1 The theory of forgery, however, is
not necessary, it is easy to see how a perfectly
honest misunderstanding might have arisen.
The sermon was probably published as a broad-
sheet, a condensed and imperfect report having
been supplied to the printer by one of the audi-
ence. The Bishop's argument was obviously to
the effect that even on the assumption that Mary
was guilty of the crimes imputed to her, she was,
as a sinner as well as their sovereign, entitled to
the prayers of her ministers. He was putting,
for the sake of argument, a hypothetical case. 2
This, I think, is an easy and natural solution ;
but the report of another admission to the same
effect, said to have been made by John Leslie,
Bishop of Eoss, presents greater difficulties.
1 Senators of the College of
Justice, by Brunton and Haig
(1832), p. 131.
2 Or was it &jeu ffesprit, a sa-
tirical effusion directed against
the Bishop as much as against
Mary? This view is rather
supported by a later passage, in
which the preacher confesses
"this vile carcass of mine to
be the most vile carrion, and
altogether given to the lusts of
the flesh, yea, and I am not
ashamed to say the greatest
trumper in all Europe, until
sic time as it pleasit God to
call upon me and mak me one
of his chosen vessels, in whom
he has poured the spirit of his
evangel."
xxxii Introductory Chapter.
The well-known historian of Scotland was the
indefatigable servant of Mary. He was for
years her constant adviser; after he was sepa-
rated from her, he went from Court to Court,
proclaiming her innocence and denouncing her
wrongs. Yet, in a letter from Thomas Wilson
to Lord Burleigh (November 8, 1571), Leslie is
represented as bringing the most grotesque and
monstrous charges against the mistress whom he
served with loyal fidelity to the end, charges
far more sweeping, indeed, than the Confederate
Lords had ventured to offer. " He saith, further,
that the Queen is not fit for any husband. For,
first, she poisoned her husband, the French
King ; again, she hath consented to the murder
of her late husband, Lord Darnley ; thirdly, she
matched with the murderer, and brought him to
the field to be murdered ; and, last of all, she
pretended marriage with the Duke, with whom
(as. he thinketh) she would not long have kept
faith, and the Duke should not have had the
best days with her." l It appears to me that this
narrative is intrinsically incredible. I do not
undertake to offer any explanation ; but and
1 Calendar of Hatfield Manuscripts, p. 564.
Introductory Chapter. xxxiii
this is a question which every reader must de-
cide for himself is it possible to believe that, in
conversation with a comparative stranger, who
was moreover an agent of the English Govern-
ment, Leslie, that " most pious, able, and devoted
servant " (as Mary called him in a letter to Philip,
shortly before her death), did connect, or could
have connected, his mistress's name with such
vile and indeed irrational criminality? Here
again we fall back upon Hume ; we may, or may
not, be able to explain the misunderstanding ;
but the fact being in itself incredible / would
not believe it were it told me by Cato.
The period to which my examination of the
State Papers has been specially directed com-
prises the thirty years between the death of
James V. and the death of Maitland (1542-1573).
It has been necessary for me to treat incidentally
of statesmen, soldiers, and poets who belonged
to an earlier time ; but, except in the case of the
Comyns, I have made no special studies for the
purpose, and even in the case of the Comyns,
I have constantly felt that the materials which I
have endeavoured to arrange required systematic
revision. In the meantime, and until some
more exhaustive inquiry has been completed,
XXXIV
Introductory Chapter.
my provisional sketch may be accepted for what
it is worth.
Among writings not contemporary, which are
more or less instructive for this period, the fol-
lowing may be noted : Mackenzie's ' Lives of
Scottish Writers;' 1 Bishop Keith's 'Affairs of
Church and State in Scotland' (Spottiswoode
Society, 1844-45); Robertson's 'History of Scot-
land ; Douglas's ' Peerage of Scotland ' (2 vols.,
1813) ; Scott's ' Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border ; ' Chalmers's ' Life of Queen Mary ; '
Riddell's 'Peerage and Consistorial Law;' Nichol's
' History of the Scottish Poor Law ; ' M'Crie's
' Life of John Knox ; ' ' Historical Account of
the Senators of the College of Justice ; ' Robert
Chambers's writings on Scottish Antiquities ;
Hallam's ' Constitutional History of England ; '
Skene's ' Celtic Scotland ; ' 2 Froude's ' History of
1 Dr Mackenzie was a care-
less, credulous, and uncritical
writer ; but, born in 1669, he
belonged to an age when au-
thentic traditions of the pre-
vious century were still current,
and some of these he, and he
alone, has recorded.
2 The extraordinary accuracy
and keen critical acumen of Dr
Skene's Celtic Scotland can-
not be lauded too highly ; and
though it deals mainly with
the Scot before his institutions
had been feudalised, it forms
the groundwork on which all
later history must be based. It
is altogether a monument of
solid and enduring work which
has barely been appreciated as
yet except by a few laborious
scholars.
Introductory Chapter.
xxxv
England ; ' l Burton's ' History of Scotland ; '
Tytler's ' History of Scotland ; ' Schiern's ' Life
of Bothwell ; ' Sir John Graham Dalzell's an-
tiquarian reprints (Sir John was a member of
the Scottish bar, who devoted himself between
1798 and 1848 to the republication in a conveni-
ent form of many rare and remarkable tracts
illustrative of Scottish history) ; Cosmo Innes's
' Scotland in the Middle Ages,' and ' Sketches of
Early Scottish History ; ' Walcot's ' The Ancient
Church of Scotland ; ' Hartings's ' Extinct British
Animals ; ' and the voluminous Mary Stuart
1 Only the man or woman
who has had to work upon the
mass of Scottish material in the
Eecord Office can properly ap-
preciate Mr Fronde's inexhaus-
tible industry and substantial
accuracy. His point of view
is very different from mine ;
but I am bound to say that his
acquaintance with the intrica-
cies of Scottish politics during
the reign of Mary appears to
me to be almost, if not quite,
unrivalled. I am afraid, from
what I have heard, that Mr
Froude's proposed History of
the Empire under Charles V.
has been definitely put aside.
One may be permitted to doubt
whether even the duties im-
posed upon him by Mr Carlyle's
testament, and which he has
discharged with such eminent
(if unappreciated) sincerity and
candour, should have been al-
lowed to stand in the way.
The nearest approach to a com-
prehensive European view of
the Revolutionary movement
of the 15th and 16th centuries
is, of course, to be found in the
successive works of the great
German historian, whose death
is announced while these pages
are going through the press
Leopold von Ranke ; but Mr
Symonds and the author of
Euphorion have presented us
with isolated " studies ;; of great
interest.
Introductory Chapter.
literature, from Goodall, Tytler, and Whittaker
to Hosack, Bell, and Swinburne.
I have considered it inadvisable to burden the
text of this preliminary volume l with copious
footnotes. Such a practice, by interrupting the
How of the narrative, tends to weaken the in-
terest and distract the attention of the reader.
The leading authorities are specified in this in-
troduction ; and an Appendix of Notes and Il-
lustrations, containing numerous extracts from,
and references to, original writers and records,
is in preparation. If I am not mistaken, the
Appendix will be found by no means dry, the
direct and naive comments of contemporary
observers having generally a natural freshness
which the more laboured narrative of the his-
torian fails to retain. I am not conscious in any
case of missing the exact sense of the passages
which I have taken from State papers and other
contemporary documents; but I have ventured
1 I propose to divide my
narrative into three Books. The
first Book is contained in the
volume now published, and in-
cludes the period from Lething-
ton's birth to Mary's return to
Scotland in 1561. The second
Book will cover the period be-
tween 1561, when Mary re-
turned, and 1567, when she
abdicated ; the Third, the
period between the abdication
and Maitland's death in 1573.
Introductory Chapter.
xxxvn
not unfrequently to substitute a modern for an
obsolete word ; and, as a rule, I do not adhere to
the spelling. I have made one exception only
certain of Lethington's letters, printed now for
the first time, are given exactly as they were
written. 1 The purist of a Text Society may pro-
perly enough resent any tampering with an
original text ; but the business of a writer of
history is to make himself intelligible to his
contemporaries, and it is a mistake to use
language (except perhaps when specially char-
acteristic and graphic as John Knox's often is)
which has become obsolete, and which, without
a glossary, cannot be understood by a fairly
intelligent reader of modern English.
A history written during the evenings of busy
days, devoted to other work, is produced under
obvious disadvantages. Yet it may possibly be
argued on the other hand that
" The sense that handles daily life,
That keeps us all in order more or less,"
and that is as valuable to the man of letters as
1 The letters referred to will
be found in the second volume,
in the chapter devoted to the
Maitland - Sussex correspond-
ence. About two hundred of
Maitland's letters are in exist-
ence.
xxxviii Introductory Chapter.
to the man of action, is braced and invigorated
by the habitual intercourse with all sorts and
conditions of men which the secluded scholar
does not enjoy.
I cannot expect that the conclusions which I
have ventured to formulate in this book will be
accepted by the zealots on either side. The
Calvinistic or Puritan view of the Scottish
Reformation has had brilliant apologists ; so
has the Catholic ; but the policy, moderately
conservative, rationally progressive, of the party
that Maitland led, has been treated with con-
sistent unfairness. Yet Maitland, according to
the view I hold, was in complete intellectual
accord with the prudent compromise which
Elizabeth and Cecil, which the English Church
and the English Commonwealth, represent.
Somewhat behind the iconoclastic Radicalism,
somewhat in advance of the reforming Catho-
licism, he followed in politics and religion the
via media. The moral and material prosperity
of Scotland is traced by many eloquent writers
to the revolutionary movement of which Knox
was the soul. It may be reasonably doubted
how far this view is consistent with a sound
Introductory Chapter.
xxxix
construction of the facts of history. The Church
of Knox, after a stormy struggle of a hundred
years, during which it had failed to conciliate the
aristocracy on the one hand, or the sober in-
telligence of the middle and lower classes on
the other, burnt itself out in Covenanter and
Cameronian. The Church that survived, the
Church that is identified with the true social
development of Scotland, is the Church of Mait-
land and Spottiswoode, of Forbes and Leigh-
ton, of Carstares and Robertson, of Robert Lee
and Norman Macleod and John Tulloch. 1 The
theocratic government which the extreme party
in Church and State desired to establish was
inconsistent with the genius of a free people ;
the Revolution of 1689, in spite of obvious
limitations, was the beginning of a better order
of things ; and to the Union, far more than to
the Reformation, the amazing progress which
Scotland has made since the early years of the
eighteenth century is to be ascribed.
1 In associating these names,
I assume of course that there is
in religious societies a moral and
spiritual continuity (the apos-
tolical succession of Christian
life and conviction), a contin-
uity which may be held perhaps
to be even more essential than
that which is ecclesiastical
only.
xl Introductory Chapter.
The famous minister of Queen Elizabeth was,
during many anxious years, the constant corres-
pondent of William Maitland ; long after Mait-
land's tragic end, Lord Burleigh, as we know,
looked back with pathetic regret to the interrup-
tion of " the old familiar friendship and strict
amity " : Were the pretty frivolities of the Age
of Dedications still in vogue, a record of the life
and times of " Lethington " would have been
most fitly inscribed to the illustrious minister
of Queen Victoria, who maintains undimmed the
civic renown of the Cecils, and who values, as
Maitland valued, sobriety in religion and sanity
in politics.
J. S.
THE HERMITAGE OF BRAID,
15th Oct. 1886.
BOOK I.
FROM MAITLAND'S BIETH TO
MARY STUART'S RETURN
MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON.
CHAPTER ONE.
LETHINGTON AND THE LAMMERMUIR.
WILLIAM MAITLAND of Lethington, one
of the most remarkable Scotsmen of the
sixteenth century, was born about the year 1528.
The accurate and industrious David Laing says
generally that he was born some time between
1525 and 1530 ; and we may therefore conclude
that the date can be only approximately de-
termined. If he was born in 1525, he was
forty-eight years old when he died ; if he was
born in 1530, he was not more than forty-three.
A brief life, according to either reckoning ; but
one into which much was crowded.
The country of the Lammermuirs is the coun-
VOL. I. A
2 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
try of the Maitlands. They owned the lands
that lie between the upper waters of the Leader
and the Tyne, their old keep of Thirlstane
being built upon an affluent of the Leader
the more modern Tower of Lethington rising
from a conspicuous plateau on the Tyne near
Haddington. Some fifteen or twenty miles of
a rough moorland track lead from the vale of
the Leader to the vale of the Tyne. It is a
country with a character of its own ; and the
pedestrian who traverses these bare high-lying
valleys, while the mists of an autumnal morning
are driving round the Lammerlaw, will not read-
ily forget the impression they make. Even now
it is a place where the characteristics of the
solitary sheep-walks of the Border dales are
appreciated with exceptional vividness. There
is nothing Alpine about the scenery, it would
be absurd to associate the mountain glory and
the mountain gloom with these unromantic up-
lands. The rocks which dip into the sea at
Fast Castle and St Abb's Head are very grand ;
but of course, regarded simply as scenery, they
have nothing in common with the inland range
to which they truly belong. Yet the pastoral
solitude of the region is not unimpressive.
From Tollishill to Tester ten miles as the crow
flies there is not a shepherd's hut. The tramp
who misses the track in winter or early spring
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 3
may be lost for days. The snow lies deep, and
the mists the easterly "haar," to which a range
that skirts the shore of the German Ocean is
pecularily exposed, as well as the true moun-
tain mists are blinding. From the summit of
the Lammerlaw one-third of Scotland lies at our
feet ; but there are comparatively few points of
vantage from which a distant view can be ob-
tained. To the eye of a stranger, indeed, no-
thing can be more confusing than this intricate
network of valleys, this convolution of glens,
this vast billowy plain, where the waves rise
and fall in soft and tender lines, and one rounded
summit succeeds another with almost wearisome
iteration. The only token of human life on their
bracken-covered sides is the occasional sheep-pen
which, however, when empty and deserted,
seems somehow to add to the loneliness of the
surroundings. What sounds there are serve
only to deepen the impression of absolute quiet-
ude, the croak of a raven, the whir of the
moorfowl, the wail of whaup and plover, the
bleating of the sheep.
The hill-country of Lauderdale even to-day
is seldom explored. There are probably a hun-
dred glens which are not visited once a-year,
except by the shepherds. Others where grouse
are sufficiently abundant may be shot over about
the Twelfth of August for a week. The birds,
4 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
however, on these low-lying moors (the Lammer-
law itself is only seventeen hundred feet above
the sea) are shy and wild, and after the first day or
two quite unapproachable. Such a district as I am
describing must have been three hundred years
ago wellnigh impenetrable. From Soutra to
Penshiel there was one track only across the hills
which a horseman could ride. The slopes of the
Lammermuir were at an early period dense with
forest and populous with game. In a manuscript
history of one of its moorland parishes, the
author observes that the names of the properties
were mostly taken from those of the wild animals
that used to haunt them. It was "a place
which of old had great woods, with wild beasts,
from which the dwellings and hills were de-
signed, as Wolfstruther, Eoecleugh, Hindside,
Hartlaw, and Harelaw." The wolf and the
forest had possibly disappeared before Lething-
ton was born ; but, even apart from savage ani-
mals and primeval thickets, it is obvious that
during an unquiet and turbulent reign, his
native valleys must have been well suited for
concealment and defence. Within a day's ride
of the capital, the sanctuaries of the Lammer-
muirs, sparsely peopled by clansmen whose
fidelity was absolute, were specially convenient
to a statesman who had many enemies. We
hear, indeed, on more than one occasion, that
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 5
the Secretary is " in hiding among the
hills."
Thirlstane the modern Thirlstane of the
Earls of Lauderdale stands within a mile of
the curious old burgh of Lauder, where a system
of land-tenure virtually amounting to peasant-
proprietorship has existed for many hundred
years. It seems to have worked fairly well,
than the burgesses of this secluded community,
a more thriving, thrifty, well-to-do set of Scots-
men are hardly to be met with this side the
Atlantic. The Maitlands, quitting the cradle of
the family in a neighbouring strath, appear to
have latterly appropriated the burgh fortalice of
Lauder. The central tower of the original fort-
ress still remains ; but first the Chancellor
William Maitland's brother and then the Duke,
adapted it to the more refined requirements
of modern life. The park, through which the
Leader winds, is finely wooded ; one or two of
the trees a noble sycamore, a still nobler ash
are of immense age ; but the famous bridge, over
which "Bell -the -Cat" and his brother nobles
hanged the unlucky favourites of James III., has
been removed. There are many pictures of the
Duke, pictures in which the story of swift
deterioration may be plainly read ; a lovely
Countess by Gainsborough or Romney ; another
delicate and winning face by a French artist ;
6 Lethinyton and the Lammermuir.
all the Earls for two hundred years ; and three
or four portraits of undoubted antiquity, which
are said to be those of William Maitland and his
brother. A strong family likeness runs through
them all ; the character of a politic and powerful
race has impressed itself upon their faces. It
may be doubted, however, whether any entirely
authentic portrait of William Maitland is in
existence ; that in ' Pinkerton,' which is said to
be taken from the Lauder portrait, is a manifest
caricature of the original ; on the other hand, an
engraving in the ' Iconographia Scotica ' repro-
duces with tolerable fidelity one of the portraits
in the Great Hall. The black velvet robe is
trimmed with fur ; the broad white collar is
richly laced. The hair is of a delicate auburn,
so are the eyes, which are almond-shaped.
The nose is long and peaked ; the lines of the
mouth, partly covered by the pointed mous-
tache, are strong and masterful. There is
nothing severe or sinister about the face ; one
feels, indeed, that it might become on occasion
keenly sarcastic ; but for the moment the air of
absolute composure, of an almost sluggish mas-
terfulness, is complete. The curiously arched
eyebrows remind one of the Mephistopheles in
Retsch's outlines ; and the expression of repose,
the accentuation of languor, is perhaps only a
trick of the diplomatist, who, while seemingly
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 7
inert and incurious, follows with instinctive vigi-
lance every feint of his adversary. So the matter
stands. We cannot positively affirm that any
portrait of William Maitland has been preserved ;
but even if it could be demonstrated that the
Secretary did not " sit " to the artist, it is quite
possible (the family traits, as I have said, being
so persistent and indelible) that we have a good
deal of " Lethington " in this really admirable
bit of work by an earlier Jamesone.
The surroundings of the old keep of Thirl -
stane, in the adjoining dale, will appear familiar
to those who know the Border landscape of the
late George Harvey. There is the long shoulder
of the pastoral hill, patched with heather and
flecked with sunshine ; the brawling mountain
torrent hurrying down to meet the Leader and
the Tweed ; the strong square tower, with its
immemorial ashes and knotted and twisted
thorns, perched on the high table-land which
rises steeply from the water-edge ; the rounded
backs of the Lammermuirs along the northern
sky. Of a summer evening, when, though the
sun has set behind " Eildon's triple height," day-
light still lingers in the west, and flushes the
zenith, it is difficult to imagine a scene more
peaceful, or in some aspects more pathetic.
Save for complaint of curlew and plover, the
silence is unbroken, and the haunting fascina-
8 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
tion of the Borderland may then be felt at its
best ;
" The grace of forest charms decayed,
And pastoral melancholy."
When I stood the other day within its crumbling
walls the cuckoo and the corn-crake were calling.
The corn-crake and the cuckoo are not exactly
modern inventions. They must have been vocal
in the valleys when robber-chiefs dwelt here
among armed retainers, and vigilantly watched
the rough and dangerous track that led across
the hills from the Scottish capital to the North-
umbrian moors. We associate these sounds with
utter peacefulness and the sweet amenities of the
spring; what associations did they stir, what
feelings did they rouse, in the breasts of the
freebooters of the Border ? The whole environ-
ment of our life has so completely changed, that
it is wellnigh impossible to realise to ourselves,
even imaginatively, the conditions, moral, in-
tellectual, and physical, of that fierce and tur-
bulent society.
But Lethington is the ancestral seat that is
most closely associated with William Maitland.
It is probable that he was born within the old
tower; there his boyhood and early manhood
were passed ; the " Politician's Walk " is still
pointed out by the local antiquary ; his friends
in Haddington and elsewhere knew him as " the
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 9
young Laird " ; in all the diplomatic correspond-
ence of the age "the Lord of Lethington" is a
famous and familiar name. To Cecil, to Eliza-
beth, to Norfolk, to Mary Stuart, "Lethington"
was the synonym for the gayest wit and the
keenest intellect in Scotland. The hill-country
is close at hand ; but the castle stands on the
plain, the fertile Lothian plain that lies be-
tween the Lammermuir and the sea. The great
central tower of the "Lamp of Lothian" the
Abbey Church of Haddington and the great
square keep of Lethington, are the two historical
monuments of the district where John Knox and
William Maitland were born. They have stood
the wear and tear of centuries ; many centuries
will pass before they cease to be landmarks.
The castle of Lethington is perhaps the finest
existing example of a kind of building which
united enormous strength with entire simplicity.
There is some little attempt at ornamentation
about the roof; the rain is carried off through
the grinning mouth of griffin or goblin ; half-a-
dozen narrow windows and narrower loopholes
pierce the walls at irregular intervals ; but other-
wise the precipice is sheer no shelf or ledge
breaks the fall. From the flat plain, this pro-
digious piece of simple, massive, monumental
masonry rises like a natural rock. The walk
round the battlements is as the path along a
10 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
sea-cliff. The fine park is thickly wooded ; but
a broad, straight, grassy avenue, twice the
breadth of the castle, has been cut across the
forest, somewhat formal, like the approach to
a French chateau, through which a delightful
glimpse of green fields and winding rivulet and
purple moorland is gained. The interior for
three centuries or more can have undergone
little, if any, change ; the kitchen, the great
hall, the bedrooms, the vaulted roof, the wind-
ing staircase in the wall, the arms of the Mait-
lands above the doorway, are in perfect pre-
servation. Before the introduction of artillery,
such a fortress was virtually impregnable. When
the owner had closed and barricaded the one
massive oaken door on the ground -floor, the
waves of war beat around it in vain. 1 Life
inside the walls, to be sure, must have been
somewhat flat and monotonous ; but the roof
protected by its stone balustrade was always
open to air and sky, and formed probably the
favourite lounge of the imprisoned inmates.
Built midway of a gentle slope facing the
1 The author of 'A Diurnal
of Occurrents' says that the
castle was burnt by the Eng-
lish on 15th September 1549.
"Upon the 15th day thereof
the Englishmen past out of
Haddington, and brunt it and
Leidington, and past away
without any battell, for the
pest and hunger was richt evil
amangst them." The damage,
however, could not have been
great.
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 1 1
Lammermuir, the view from the highest turret
is extremely fine. The towers of the Abbey
Church, indeed (the Abbey lying to the north
in the shallow basin of the Tyne), are not in
sight ; but from east to west the billowy sweep
of wooded knoll and yellow strath appears well-
nigh illimitable. Coalston and Salton, Tester
and Whittinghame places renowned in history
and legend are near at hand. So are Soutra
and the Lammerlaw. The capital itself (or the
heights in its neighbourhood) may once have
been visible on a clear day; but on that side
the spreading branches of a circle of venerable
limes now rise above the roof.
Lethington has passed away from the Mait-
lands, and the name of the great historical
mansion is not to be found on the map. The
Duke sold it to the cousin of a famous hoyden,
the saucy and frivolous Frances Stewart of
De Grammont's scandalous chronicle. It is said,
indeed, to have been virtually given to him by
the spoilt beauty after she became Duchess of
Lennox, Lord Blantyre being a poor man, the
purchase-money was advanced to him by his
cousin. Hence the fantastic modern name
Lennoxlove. Thus also it comes about that the
heirlooms of the Maitlands are to be found, not
at Lethington, but at Thirlstane ; and the only
picture of much interest on the walls is that of
12 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
Frances Stewart herself, painted by Sir Peter
for the Duke.
"Fife and the Lothians" was then the politi-
cal heart of Scotland ; and Maitland was lucky
in being born within twenty miles of the capital.
No fitter birthplace, indeed, for a Scottish states-
man could have been selected. The Lauderdale
Maitlands, it is true, did not rank with the great
governing houses of Hepburn or Hamilton or
Hume ; but, though commoners themselves, they
were allied by marriage with the nobility of
Lothian; the family was now prosperous and
powerful; and their lineage was not undis-
tinguished.
Before the Leader joins the Tweed, it passes
the hamlet of Earlston, Earlston being the
modern corruption of Ercildoun. Thomas the
Ehymer is a somewhat shadowy and unsubstan-
tial figure, and modern scepticism treats his pro-
phetic utterances with scant respect. But even
the historical iconoclast does not venture to im-
peach the authority of the feudal conveyance
which has been duly recorded, and charters
granted by or to the Laird of Ercildoun are still
in evidence. That the poet was married is another
fact which has been fully established ; and his
wife, if the unbroken tradition of Lauderdale may
be accepted, was a daughter of the then knight
of Thirlstane the ancestor of William Maitland.
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 13
I do not know if this knight of Thirlstane can
be identified with the " auld Maitland " who is
the hero of a well-known ballad recovered by Sir
Walter Scott from the recitation of Mrs Hogg
the venerable mother of the Ettrick Shepherd.
This Sir Eichard was the owner of Thirlstane
during the war of independence, and his obsti-
nate defence of the old castle, judging from the
fragments that remain, must have furnished a
popular theme to many a Border minstrel.
Among the romantic figures dear to the com-
mon people commemorated by the Bishop of
Dunkeld, " Maitland with his auld beard grey "
occupies a prominent place. According to the
ballad, the English army under Edward, after
harrying the Merse and Teviotdale, " all in an
evening late," came to a " darksome house "
upon the Leader. The darksome house was
Thirlstane, where a grey-haired knight, in an-
swer to Edward's summons, " set up his head,
and crackit richt crousely." He had got, he
said, his "gude auld hoose," from the Scottish
king, and he would keep it as long as it would
keep him, against English king or earl. The
siege lasted for more than a fortnight ; but
each assault was repulsed ; and at last auld
Maitland was left "hail and feir" "within
his strength of stane." The king was bitterly
mortified; and when at a later period he met
14 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
young Maitland abroad, the face of the stern
old father " Sic a gloom on ae browhead ! "
still haunted his memory. "For every drap
o' Maitland blude, I'll gie a rig o' land." The
young Scottish soldier was nowise loath to ac-
cept the invitation ; and when he had got the
representative of " the auld enemy " fairly under
foot, he gave him characteristically short shrift.
" It's ne'er be said in France, nor e'er
In Scotland when I'm hame,
That Englishman lay under me
And e'er gat up again."
Between this Sir Eichard, whose exploits were
" sung in many a far countrie, albeit in rural
rhyme," and the Sir Richard of Mary Stuart's
Court, the figures of the successive owners of
Thirlstane are somewhat dim and undistinguish-
able. A "William de Mautlant of Thirlstane
joined the Bruce, and died about 1315. His
son, Sir Robert Maitland, who, on 17th October
1345, had a charter of the lands of Lethington,
fell next year at the battle of Durham. John,
the son of another William, married Lady Agnes
Dunbar, daughter of Patrick, Earl of March
March was one of the greatest of the great
earldoms and died about 1395. Then Robert
Maitland of Thirlstane was in 1424 one of the
hostages for James I. William Maitland, the
father of the later Sir Richard, and the grand-
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 15
father of Queen Mary's Secretary, married a
daughter of George, second Lord Seton, and fell
at Flodden. It is plain from this brief retro-
spect that for several hundred years the ances-
tors of " Lethington " had held a considerable
and distinguished place among the great county
families of the Merse. The name, moreover,
had been intimately associated with some of the
most stirring events in the national annals. We
need not wonder, therefore, that the second Sir
Richard should have prided himself as he did
upon his descent. He was "dochter's son" of
the noble house of Seton ; and he " collectit,
gaderit, and set furth" with keen enjoyment
the records of that gallant race. But he was
probably thinking of the untitled gentlemen
who had lived at Thirlstane on the Leader son
succeeding father in an unbroken line for many
generations when he wrote, with pardonable
complacency, in the prologue to his history,
" For we see some men, barons' and small
gentlemen's houses, which began before some of
the said great houses (now decayed), and con-
tinued all their time, and yet stands lang after
them in honour and sufficient living."
Of this Sir Richard the famous father of the
more famous son, whose life I have undertaken
to write a good deal of information through
various channels has come down to us, and may
16 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
here be pieced together. He was ninety years
old when he died in 1585 ; so that he must have
been born four or five years before the close of
the fifteenth century. He succeeded to the
family estates in 1513 ; and about 1521 married
Mariot Cranstoun, the daughter of the Laird of
Crosbie. They had seven children three sons
and four daughters. Both Sir Richard and
Lady Maitland attained extreme old age the
wife dying on the day her husband was buried.
During his long life he held high office in the
State, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Commissioner
to England, Senator of the College of Justice.
He was, according to the poet who wrote his
epitaph (Thomas Hudson, " the unremembered
name of him"), " ane worthy knight, baith
valiant, grave, and wise ; " and the eulogy was
not undeserved. His " steadfast truth and un-
corrupted faith" had never been impugned either
by friend or foe. 1 Enemies indeed he had none ;
1 Knox indeed asserts in his
reckless fashion that Maitland
was bribed to allow Cardinal
Beaton to escape from prison
in 1543. "But at length by
buddis given to the said Lord
Seaton and to the old Lord of
Lethingtoun, he was restored
to St Andrews, from whence he
wrought all mischief." Sadler
and Arran must have known
who were implicated ; but,
though they talked the matter
over, Lethington's name does
not occur. " Then he told me,"
Sadler writes, reporting his
conversation with the Regent,
" then he told me swearing
a great oath that the Cardi-
nal's money had corrupted
Lord Seton."
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 17
both factions respected and trusted him ; the
counsel of the " unspotted and blameless " judge
was always in request. James VI. observed, on
his retirement from the active duties of the
bench, that he had served with unswerving
fidelity, " our grandsire, gudsire, grandame,
mother, and ourself ; " so that Sir Eichard must
have been in the public service in one capacity
or other for upwards of sixty years.
It was a wild and stormy time ; and the man
who, in high office during sixty of these troubled
years, was permitted to lead a simple, studious,
tranquil, and, for the most part, uneventful life,
must have been exceptionally fortunate, as well
as constitutionally prudent. Several months of
each year were of course spent in the capital ;
but Lethington was his favourite residence. He
loved the quiet of the country. There he col-
lected his poems ; there he planted ; there he
gardened. The apple still prized as "the Leth-
ington," was, it is said, introduced by him from
abroad. A contemporary poet has painted with
cordial sympathy, and no inconsiderable skill,
the characteristic attractions of the old keep.
Let Virgil praise Mantua, Lucan Corduba ; but
the excellence of Lethington its massive tower,
its walls exceeding strong will be his theme.
He can keep silence no longer; he must "put
furth his mind," as he says, with natural quaint-
VOL. I. B
18 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
ness. How delightful it is to gaze from the
wide roof over fair fields and woods ; to see
Phoebus rise from the Lammermuir, or at
nightfall "to hear the bumming of the air
and pleasant even's sound!" The arbours, the
flower-beds, the orchard green, the " alleys fair,
baith braid and lang," which he praises, are still
preserved ; but the lands have passed away from
men of "Maitland blude"; even the historic
name has been stupidly and foolishly discarded ;
and one fears that the bard's inquiry
" Who does not know the Maitland blude,
The best in all the land ;
In whilk some time the honor stude,
And worship of Scotland ? "
would not now receive, even from the dwellers
on the soil which Sir Eichard owned, any clear
or articulate response. It is only a hundred
years ago since Pinkerton was able to assure
his readers that Barbour's ' Bruce,' Blind Harry's
'Wallace,' and Sir David Lindsay's poems "might
be found in modern spelling in almost every
cottage in Scotland." I imagine that, out of
the libraries of the learned and curious, not
half-a-dozen copies could now be produced. The
new democracy appear to have absolutely no
interest in the story or ballad which was the
delight of their fathers and grandfathers. We
Letliington and the Lammermuir. 19
have wisely or unwisely made a clean sweep
of the Past.
A great calamity overtook Sir Richard at a
period of his life which cannot now be precisely
fixed. We know, however, that before Mary
returned to Scotland he was blind. The loss
of sight to a man of his tastes must have been
a severe privation; but he bore the affliction
with characteristic calmness and cheerfulness.
Fortunately it did not incapacitate him for
active life, he continued to occupy his seat
on the bench, which he did not definitely resign,
as we have seen, till within a year or two of
his death. In the country he must now, how-
ever, have been comparatively helpless. Field-
sports were out of the question, and even his
trees and flowers had possibly ceased to inter-
est him. " I am visited with such infirmity,"
he says, in the preface to the ' History of the
Setons/ "that I am unable to occupy myself
as in times past. But to avoid idleness of mind,
and because in these days I think it perilous to
' mell ' with matters of great importance, I have
among other labours gathered and collected the
things set forth in this little volume." By
"other labours" he probably alludes to what
ultimately became his engrossing occupation
the cultivation and collection of verse. The
Maitland Manuscripts preserved at Cambridge
20 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
are worth far more than their weight in gold
are in fact invaluable ; for had they not been
preserved, much of the early poetry of Scotland
would have been irretrievably lost. Mary Mait-
land was his favourite amanuensis (she wrote
with admirable distinctness and legibility, be-
sides being a bit of a poet herself) ; and thus
father and daughter seated at the window of
the Great Hall which looks out on the Lammer-
law months, and possibly years, were pleasantly
and profitably spent. 1
Sir Richard's own verses not as poetry in-
deed, but as records of the time are interesting
o
and valuable. They confirm the agreeable im-
pression of his character which we otherwise
obtain. The writer was not a man of any excep-
tional insight or brilliancy ; but his sincerity, his
shrewdness, his fine sense, his good feeling, his
homely honesty and rectitude, are disclosed on
every page. The passion 2 of the Reformation
1 The Scottish Text Society
are about to republish the Cam-
bridge MSS. A facsimile of a
page from the folio Maitland
MS. in the Pepys Collection in
Magdalen College will be found
in the third volume of the
'Facsimiles of the National
Manuscripts of Scotland' (No.
XXVI.), which also contains
two pages from the quarto MS.
in the beautiful handwriting of
Mary Maitland (No. LXXII.)
2 The hysterica passio, we
might say, when such an in-
cident as this was possible :
" There chanced a duel, a single
combat, betwixt James Hep-
burn of Moreham and one
Birnie a skinner in Edinburgh.
They were both slain and buried
the morning after. Hepburn
LetTiington and the Lammermuir. 21
does not appear to have touched him. In a
fanatical age he was fair; he was tolerant at a
time when toleration was held to be a mark of
the beast. A good deal of the liberal spirit
which distinguished the son is found in the
father. Though latterly a stanch Protestant, he
had no patience with the "fleshly gospellaris,"
as he calls them, who though most godly in
words were loose livers, and who, though in all
other things they acted " maist wicketlie," yet
held themselves to be the true servants of God,
because they called the Pope Antichrist, and the
Mass idolatry, and ate flesh on Fridays. There
is a fine passage in the ' History of the Setons,'
where, after recording the benefactions of Jane
Hepburn to the church of Seton, he continues :
" Peradventure some in these days will think
that building of kirks, giving of ornaments
thereto, and founding of priests, are superstitious
things and maintenance of idolatry, and there-
fore not worthy to be put in memory. But who
will please to read the histories and chronicles of
all countries will find the conquest of lands, the
moving of wars, and the striking of fields and
alleged and maintained that
there was seven sacraments ;
Birnie would have but two or
else he would fight. The other
was content with great pro-
testations that he would defend
his belief with his sword ; and
so, with great earnestness they
yoked, and thus the question
was decided."
22 Lethington and the Lammennuir.
battles most written and treated of, howbeit
the said conquests and doings proceeded of most
insatiable greediness, and most cruel tyranny,
against all law both of God and man. And since
things unleesom as these are written to the com-
mendation of the doers thereof, may I not set
forth such works as, through all Christendom,
and with all the estates thereof, were held of
greatest commendation and most godly ? How
they pleased God, I refer to Himself who sees
the hearts and intentions of all creatures. At
the least it shows the liberal and honourable
heart of the doers thereof, who would rather
spend their geir and goods upon such visible
and commendable acts than hoard and poke up
the same in coffers, or waste it upon unlawful
sensuality or prodigality."
We are constantly told that the principles of
civil and religious liberty were unfamiliar to the
men of the sixteenth century, and that tolera-
tion, liberty of conscience, freedom of speech
and thought, were plants of later growth. But
such a passage as this (and there are many
similar passages, for instance, in the contem-
porary letters of William the Silent) seems to
show that the idea was not so unfamiliar as it is
said to have been, and that the reformers who
attached civil and ecclesiastical penalties to "un-
licensed thinking" sinned wilfully, and against
Leihington and the Lammermuir. 23
the light. And if we are to accept Sir Richard's
deliberate judgment the impressions of a singu-
larly sober and judicial observer we are tempted
to question how far the new order of things, as a
reformation of morals, was a real advance upon
the old. Much of the literature of the age, at
least, seems to support the contention that there
was little immediate amendment of life, and that,
in some respects indeed, the ultra-Calvinistic
revolution did more harm than good. It was
natural, of course, that the liberation of the
fresh and ardent activities which were every-
where at work should be attended by occasional
outbursts of anarchy and licence ; and too much
validity must not be ascribed to complaints
which were perhaps unconsciously exaggerated.
The preachers ultimately succeeded in stemming
the tide. Open sin as well as innocent gaiety
were proscribed ; but the Puritan was not vic-
torious for nearly a century ; and if Scotland
had been content with such " reasonable reforma-
tion" as Sir David Lindsay and Sir Richard
Maitland advocated, it is possible that his aid
might have been entirely dispensed with. The
religious debauch has been followed once, and
perhaps more than once, in our history by the
inevitable reaction.
Sir Richard's complaints are very specific, and
are so far borne out by much contemporary evi-
24 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
dence. Where is the blitheness that hath been ?
he inquires. The popular festivals and merry-
makings are forbidden ; the old familiar and
kindly relations between the laird and his
dependants have ceased to exist. Justice cannot
be administered ; the great men come to the bar
with "jak of steel," and overawe the judges.
The thieves of Liddesdale are more truculent
than ever. Both the temporal and spiritual
estates are " soupit in sensualitie"; and, in spite
of the pretended reformation, at no former time
were vice and crime more prevalent, pride,
envy, dissimulation, on the one hand; theft,
slaughter, and oppression of the commons on the
other. Euth and pity are banished. The peas-
antry had been well treated by the kirkmen ;
but since the teinds and kirk-lands have been
appropriated by lay lords they are utterly
wrecked having been either evicted from their
holdings, or ruined by monstrous rents and
oppressive services. The commons were profit-
able to the common- weal ; what is to come of
the land, he asks, when none are left to defend
it ? But though the honest hind is ruined, the
money which has been wrung from him is reck-
lessly thrown away on unprofitable luxuries.
New-fangled fashions are spreading among the
wealthy traders. The furred cloaks of the wives
and daughters of the citizens are made of the
Leihington and the Lammermuir. 25
finest silk their hats are " cordit " with gold,
and " broidered " with golden thread their shoes
and slippers are of velvet.
It may be said that these are the complaints
of an aristocratic grumbler, who had no very
warm attachment to the new order and the new
men ; but the language used by the preachers of
the Reformed Church themselves was just as
vehement. The General Assembly which met
at Leith in January 1572 twelve years after
the Reformation had been completed was
opened by an address from the Reverend David
Ferguson ; and it is tolerably obvious, from the
unqualified terms in which he denounced the
prevailing ungodliness and immorality, that up
to that time no amendment had been observed
by those most closely interested. " For this day
Christ is spoiled among us, while that which
ought to maintain the ministry of the Kirk and
the poor is given to profane men, flatterers in
Court, ruffians and hirelings; the poor in the
meantime oppressed with hunger, the kirks and
temples decaying for the lack of ministers and
upholding, and the schools utterly neglected."
If he had been brought up in Germany, he con-
tinues, " where Christ is truly preached, and all
things done decently and in order," and then
should have seen "the foul deformity of your
kirks and temples, which are more like sheep-
26 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
cots than the house of God," he could not have
believed that there was " any fear of God or
right religion in the most part of this realm."
" And as for the ministers of the Word, they are
utterly neglected, and come in manifest contempt
among you ; whom ye mock in your mirth and
threaten in your anger." This spirited discourse
was printed at St Andrews in 1573, and was
approved by Knox, who "with my dead hand
but glad heart " praised God that " in this desola-
tion " such light was still left in His Church. It
is clear, indeed, that Knox himself, in his latter
years, was profoundly dissatisfied with the fruits
of the Eeformation. His influence had declined ;
he was very lonely : " Jezebel " had been cast
out, and the preachers were victorious ; yet some-
how the Church did not thrive.
One of the most interesting of Sir Richard's
poems is addressed to his eldest son " Counsel
to my son being in the Court." It was written
about 1555, soon after William Maitland had
entered the service of the Queen-Regent. He
entreats his son to be neither a flatterer nor a
scorner ; but to treat all men with equal courtesy
and gentleness. He warns him against " playing
at the carts," unless, indeed, for pastime or in-
considerable stakes. Though he should rise to
the highest place in the government, he is to
remember the instability of fortune, and walk
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 27
warily. He is not to seek prematurely for ad-
vancement ; experience steadies the judgment ;
and it is well not to be over-confident in a world
which is as changeable as the moon or the sea.
He is to follow a consistent course, be not blown
about, he says emphatically, by "winds of all
airts." And above all he is to be true in thought
and deed to the Queen, caring at the same time
for the poor man, and maintaining justice and
right. One is not quite sure, when reading this
poem, how far the old laird understood or appre-
ciated his brilliant son. After the Secretary's
death, Sir Richard wrote to Elizabeth to assure
her that he did not approve of all that William
Maitland had done. But upon the whole, the
relations between father and son, from first to
last, appear to have been entirely cordial. There
was a good deal, indeed, of the incalculable about
the younger man, and Sir Richard may occasion-
ally have felt as the mother hen feels when her
duckling takes to the water. This liking for an
unfamiliar element is, we may fancy, a constant
source of surprise and disquietude to the mater-
nal mind ; and Lethington's brilliant audacities
may sometimes have been misinterpreted by his
father as they were by others.
All Sir Richard's sons were men of extraordi-
nary force of character ; even Thomas, who died
young and who is remembered mainly as one of
28 Leihington and the Lammermuir.
the learned controversialists in Buchanan's cele-
brated symposium ' De Jure Eegni apud Scotos '
must have been a remarkable man. He is the
reputed author of a jeu desprit printed in Cal-
derwood, which for its ironical force and grave
simplicity is not unworthy of Swift or Defoe.
It professes to report the speeches which were
delivered at an informal meeting by the leaders
of the extreme party in Church and State on the
proposal that Moray should accept the crown.
The peculiarities of each of the speakers Knox,
Lindsay, John Wood, James Macgill, and the
rest are hit off with entire fidelity ; and the
grave tone of an impartial reporter is preserved
with whimsical decorum. The preachers were
very angry; they denounced the anonymous
author and his " forgery," as they called it, with
the utmost bitterness ; and anxiously assured
their people that no such meeting had been held.
Irony is the flower (the flower or weed ?) of a
later season. The delicate incisiveness and subtle
reserve of a weapon that wounds with the stealthy
stroke of the stiletto were indifferently appre-
ciated at a time when heads were harder and
thicker than they are now, and when good down-
right abuse a blow straight from the shoulder
such as Knox could deliver was required to
impress an argument on the understanding. The
bubbles that float on the surface of a refined and
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 29
polished society are common enough among us ;
Canning, Praed, Disraeli, Thackeray, Aytoun,
Martin, have brought the art of blowing them to
perfection ; but Maitland's political squib was
perhaps the first of its kind in Scotland, and
deserves recognition accordingly.
Here are a few words from the speech assigned
to Knox : " ' I praise my God greatumlie that
hath heard my prayer, which often times I
poured forth before the throne of His Majesty,
in anguish of my heart ; and that hath made
His Evangell to be preached with so notable a
success under so weak instruments ; which in-
deed could never have been done, except your
Grace had been constituted ruler over the Church,
especially indued with such a singular and ar-
dent affection to obey the will of God and voice
of His ministers. Therefore it seemeth to me
necessar, both for the honour of God, the comfort
of the poor brethren, and the utility of this com-
monweal, that first your Grace, next your estate,
be preserved in equality of time, and not to
prescribe any diet of fifteen or seventeen years,
leaning more to the observation of politic laws
than the approbation of the eternal God. As
I could never away with their jolly wits and
politic brains, which my Lord Lindsay calleth
Matchiavel's disciples, so should I wish they
were out of the way if it were possible. Better
30 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
it is to content ourselves with him of whose
modesty we have had good experience, both in
wealth and trouble, than to change from the
gravity of an aged ruler to the intemperancy of
an unbridled child. Your Grace hath perceived
how the blast of my trumpet against the Kegi-
ment of Women is approved of all the godly. I
have written in like manner, and have it ready
for the printing, a book wherein I prove by suffi-
cient reasons that all kings, princes, and rulers
go not by succession ; and that birth hath no
power to promote, nor bastardy to seclude, men
from the government. This will waken others
to think more deeply. Besides this, we shall
set furth an act in the General Assembly ; and
both I and the rest of the brethren shall ratify
the same in our daily sermons, till that it be
more than sufficiently persuaded to the people.
This being solemnly done, the book of God
opened and laid before the nobility, who will
say the contrair, except he that will not fear
the weighty hand of the magistrate striking with
the sword, and the censure of the Kirk rejecting
him, as the scabbed sheep from the rest of the
flock, by excommunication ? ' Then my Lord
Eegent said : ' Ye know I was never ambitious :
yet I will not oppose myself to the will of God,
revealed by you who are His true ministers. But,
John, hear ye tell your opinion in the pulpit.'
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 31
Which when he had promised to do, the Laird
of Pittarow was desired to speak."
The finale as related by Calderwood, is highly
characteristic of the manners and customs of a
theocratic society : " David Forrest, called the
General, gave a copy of it to Alice Sandelands,
Lady Ormeston, and affirmed it to be true. She
brought it to Mr Knox, and asked if it was true.
He answered, 'Ye sail know my answer after-
ward.' So the next preaching day he rehearsed
the contents of it, and declared that the devill,
the father of lees, was the chief inventor of that
letter, whosoever was the penman, and threat-
ened that the contriver should die in a strange
land, where he should not have a friend near
him to hold up his head. And as the servant of
God denounced, it came to pass ; for he departed
out of this life in Italy while he was going to
Kome." 1
1 Satirical effusions do not
appear to have been in favour
with the Presbyterian clergy.
Thus we find in the Chronicle
of Perth : " Henry Balnaves
and William Jack made their
repentance in their own seats
on Sabbath afternoon, for mak-
ing libel against Mr William
Couper, minister, and Henry
Elder, clerk
As King David was ane sair sanct
to the crown,
So is Mr William Couper and the
clerk to this poor town."
Not content with ecclesiastical
censure, an Act of Council was
afterwards passed, which de-
clared that neither of them
" should bear office or get hon-
orable place in the town there-
after." Considering the strength
of their own language, the min-
isters must have been extraor-
dinarily sensitive.
32 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
John Maitland, the second son, was born in
1545, so that he was a mere lad when "Leth-
ington " was in the prime of life. He was a
fine scholar some of his Latin epigrams are
still preserved ; an eminent lawyer, who had
acquired wide repute as a jurist before he was
raised to the bench ; and he was made a judge
at three -and -twenty. He lacked the supreme
gifts of his elder brother the flash of genius,
the play of wit, the brilliant gaiety; but for
sheer force of character he was not a whit his
inferior. When he emerged from the long
eclipse that followed the fall of Mary's faction
in Scotland, he rose with extraordinary rapidity
to the highest place in the State. He was the
favourite minister of James. The great nobles,
the old earls, regarded him with distrust ; but,
confident in the support of the middle classes
and of the Kirk, he successfully defied their
hostility. The conflict with Bothwell, the con-
flict with Mar, were prolonged and obstinate ;
but, though he met with occasional misadven-
tures, his intrepidity, his political sagacity, his
indefatigable industry, made him indispensable
to the king, and when he died in his fiftieth
year he was still one of the foremost men, if
not the foremost man, in Scotland. He was
building the great house at Thirlstane when he
was suddenly seized with mortal illness ; and
. Lethington and the Lammermuir. 33
his grandson, the famous or infamous Duke,
years afterwards, completed the princely house,
which a too sanguine architect had left unfin-
ished. He had so far, indeed, outlived his pop-
ularity. He had established the Presbyterian
form of worship and government in the Church ;
the Act of 1592, "the charter of the liberties
of the Kirk," as it is called, was his work ; but
he had been concerned in the death of "the
bonnie Earl of Moray," a crime which, taking
hold of the popular imagination, like the death
of Darnley, Scotsmen have never ceased to de-
test. Lord Burleigh said that the Scottish
Chancellor was " the wisest man in Scotland ; "
and the intimate relations "the old familial-
acquaintance and strict amity " which Sir
William Cecil had maintained with Lethington,
were renewed with the younger Maitland ; but
there was a large alloy of baser stuff in his
" wisdom " ; the ardent Churchman was careless
of religion, and the sagacious and patriotic
statesman was restrained by no vulgar and in-
convenient scruples.
Lord Thirlstane John Maitland was made a
peer before he died was buried in the Abbey
Church of Haddington, where many of the Mait-
lands lie. On a florid monument of yellow
marble in the aisle his virtues were duly com-
memorated by his august master in even more
VOL. i. c
34 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
florid verse. The monument has been carefully
preserved ; it is within a few yards of the simple
slab which marks the last resting-place of Jane
Welsh Carlyle.
On the later fortunes of the Maitlands, as
peers of Scotland, it is not here necessary to
enlarge. Only once in the years that suc-
ceeded did they rise again into distinct his-
torical and national importance. The portly
figure of Lauderdale a grotesque and uncouth,
but terribly impressive figure occupies a large
part of the canvas which the painters of the
next century devoted to its beauties and to its
wits. The apostate Covenanter became the boon
companion of Charles, and the contrast between
the austere discipline of the conventicle and the
gaieties of a voluptuous Court was no doubt
keenly relished. The coarse and sensual tastes
of the man were not perhaps inbred ; the evil
grew upon him as we can partly trace in the
portraits that remain ; under happier stars, and
a better master, the most highly gifted Scotsman
of the time might have been worthily and pro-
fitably employed. But the infamy which, in
the judgment of his countrymen, attaches to
that sinister career, is not now likely to be
relieved by any touch of brightness which the
closest scrutiny (and five - and - twenty vol-
umes of unexplored Lauderdale manuscripts
Lethington and the Lammermuir. 35
repose in the British Museum) can throw
upon it. 1
Of the earlier life of William Maitland, little,
indeed nothing, with certainty is known. I am,
for various reasons, inclined to believe that he
was born about the year 1528, it is probable
that his brother John, the Chancellor of James
VI., was not born before 1545 ; and John was
one of the younger members of a family which,
as I have said, consisted of three sons and four
daughters. 2 William was little more than a boy
when, following the fashion of the time, he went
to St Andrews, and he probably completed his
education abroad. The close connection between
Scotland and France was still maintained, and
the sons of the Scottish gentry were well re-
ceived by the polished society of a capital
where Marie of Lorraine had been a familiar
figure, and where her daughter, the little Queen
of Scots, with her band of maiden " Maries," and
the fair scholars of the cloister, now held a mimic
Court. It is obvious from his correspondence
that Maitland had been highly educated ; the
incidental allusions, the classical innuendoes, the
1 Selections from these papers
are being published by the
Camden Society.
2 Pinkerton says John was
born about 1537; but he was
only fifty when he died in
1595. The date commonly as-
signed is 1545, and this agrees
with the inscription on his
monument.
36 Lethington and the Lammermuir.
bright byplay in his letters, are characteristic of
a man of graceful and scholarly accomplishment.
He was not, perhaps, a profound or laborious
student ; but for a man of action, for a man of
the world, his store of poetry and philosophy
was by no means contemptible, and he could
use it on occasion with characteristic prompti-
tude and adroitness. The erudite Elizabeth
declared that Lethington was " the flower of
the wits of Scotland ; " in many a sharp debate,
in many a Biblical controversy, Knox found
him no mean antagonist. Yet it is certain that
he was an even better judge of men than of
books. Than the young Scotsman, who in his
thirtieth year became a Minister of State, no
keener critic of the follies and foibles of the
world, of human nature in its strength and in
its weakness, was then living.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE SCOTLAND OF MARY STUART.
rPHE stranger who from the summit of Black-
ford Hill gazes across green strath and
winding river and autumn-tinted woods to the
distant Ben Lomond and Ben Ledi, is astonished
by the wonderful variety and beauty of the
landscape. No fairer scene had Marmion sur-
veyed ; (the magic light of an incomparable
imagination falls here as elsewhere !) and many
who have gone further afield than Marmion are
ready to admit that it is not easily rivalled.
The capital itself and its immediate surroundings
can be studied to better advantage from this
than from any other coign of vantage in the
neighbourhood. Arthur's Seat, with the long
buttress of Salisbury Crag, stands directly before
us. A mile or so to the west the Castle crowns
the rocky ridge which rises from Holyrood to
St Giles', and on which Old Edinburgh was built.
Beyond the spires of church and citadel stretch
38 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
the blue waters of the Forth and the low shores
of Fife. In the mid distance lies the rocky
island of Inchkeith ; and with a field-glass the
masts of the merchant navy riding in the roads
of Leith (where Winter's fleet lay during the
famous siege) may be singled out one by one.
The level plain between us and the city the
arena, as it were, of a spacious amphitheatre
is surrounded on every side by eminences more
or less commanding, the Castle Kock, the
Calton Hill, Arthur's Seat, the heights of Black-
ford, Craiglockhart, and Corstorphine. Directly
behind us lies the deep glen of the Hermitage,
with its rich sweep of autumnal woods ; while
still further to the south the graceful line of the
Pentlands rises sharply and picturesquely above
the pastoral hills of Braid.
It is not less than three miles from Blackford
to the Castle Hill ; but the whole intervening
space has now been built over, much of it
within the memory of middle-aged men. The
squalid and densely populated " closes " that
surround the Grassmarket and the Greyfriars
are succeeded by stately crescents and spacious
squares, and these again by the sumptuous villas
of the lawyers and merchants of the prosperous
capital of the north.
The Edinburgh that Lethington knew as a lad
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 39
the Edinburgh of 1545 or of 1550 was con-
tracted within narrow limits. It occupied the
back of the ridge between the Castle and Holy-
rood, or to speak more correctly, between the
Castle and the Netherbow ; for at that time the
Canongate, which continued the High Street to
the palace of Mary Stuart, formed a separate
burgh. On the north no fortified line of wall
was needed the deep dip into the Nor' Loch
being sufficient protection for the lofty buildings
which were there crowded along the brink of a
wellnigh impassable ravine.
Outside the city wall to the south, there was
little building of any kind. The district was
sparsely peopled. There were one or two
chapels or religious houses ; some sort of pro-
visional shelter on the Boroughmuir for those
smitten by leprosy or the plague ; a hamlet of
rustics beside St Eoque ; the strong castle of the
Napiers of Merchiston, and the mansion of the
Lairds of Braid. A dense forest of oak had at
one time clothed the gentle slopes that lie be-
tween Merchiston and the Pentlands ; "a field
spacious and delightful by the shade of many
stately and aged oaks ; " but the forest had been
gradually thinned out ; much of the timber had
been used for the construction of booths and
galleries in the city ; and the wild creatures
40 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
who had haunted the sylvan glades of Blackford
and Braid had been driven back upon the valley
of the Tweed and the moors and marshes of the
Upper Ward.
The French called the city Lislebourg a
name which now seems hardly appropriate. In
the sixteenth century, however, Edinburgh was
nearly surrounded by water. The Nor' Loch
and the marshes of the Boroughmuir have been
drained; but the picturesque slopes of Arthur's
Seat still rise from the reedy margin of lakes
where the ousel and the moor-hen breed.
The edge of the ridge on which the buildings
of Old Edinburgh were piled is nowhere more
than a few yards wide. The main thoroughfare
occupied this narrow arete. The steep and often
precipitous " closes " which join the High Street
and Canongate at right angles, and constitute
the most notable feature of the old town, take
their character from the lie of the ground which
they occupy. They form a series of stairs or
ladders, on either side of the ridge, leading
straight from the level and open country below
to the central thoroughfare. In this main
thoroughfare the whole public life of the city
was concentrated. Here was the great Collegiate
Church of St Giles' here the market-places
(the Tron and the butter Tron), the Cross, the
Parliament House, the Courts of Justice, the
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 41
dwellings of the great nobles and lawyers and
merchants and ecclesiastics. 1 The population of
the capital at this time did not amount to more
than forty thousand souls ; but it was crowded
into a space where at the present day it would
be difficult to accommodate one-half the number.
The whole length of the High Street from the
Castle to the Tron is only eight hundred yards ;
from the Castle to Holyrood not more than
fourteen hundred. The capital was thus as
populous as an ant-hill; and from morning to
night the main street at least must have pre-
sented a busy- and stirring scene a scene which
no doubt reminded the Flemish trader of the
turbulent burgher life of the great cities of his
native land of Ghent and Antwerp and Bruges.
Much of the business was transacted in the open
air; the "closes," each shut off by its gate from
the High Street, were so narrow that neighbours
sitting at door or window could converse across
the footpath. The ferment of this excited and
animated life, favourable as it was to the growth
of a somewhat turbulent democratic sentiment,
must have been highly contagious. Priests and
nobles and tradesmen and caddies jostled one
1 The High Street, however,
even at this time, had been
mainly appropriated by the
trading community the great
nobles and ecclesiastics having
already retreated to the aris-
tocratic " closes."
42
The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
another on the " causey." They met in the
great cathedral at the solemn functions of the
Church ; they bartered and trafficked in the road-
way ; the women sat and gossiped on the outside
stairs of the houses, or along the open galleries ;
no criminal was taken to the Tolbooth or hanged
at the Cross, no troop of retainers wearing the
livery of Douglas or Hamilton entered the gates,
no sermon was preached in St Giles' or speech
made to the Parliament, without the whole com-
munity being forthwith apprised of what had
taken place. The "rascal multitude" of the
capital was alternately abused by courtly Church-
man and uncourtly Reformer; and the impul-
siveness which led them to side now with the
one faction and now with the other, was no doubt
due to the feverish conditions of the life they
led. Brought daily together into intimate con-
tact, each craftsman was known by headmark to
every other. All public acts, all political and
municipal duties, were transacted under a fierce
blaze of light, which excited and stimulated the
entire society. Thus it came about that at not
unfrequent intervals, when heated by zeal or
blinded by panic, they sallied out, master and
man, like a swarm of angry bees. 1
1 Taylor, the Water Poet, I am writing, gives a graphic
who was in Scotland some fifty picture of the capital as it was
years after the period of which in the beginning of the next
The Scotland of Mai*y Stuart.
43
Of this stirring and crowded life, and of the
influence it exercised on the nation at large, I
shall have occasion to speak hereafter ; in the
meantime we must try to realise with some dis-
tinctness the condition of provincial Scotland,
the Scotland that lay outside the walls of the
capital, about the time when William Maitland
left the family nest to try his fortune at Court.
The country everywhere was thinly peopled ;
the whole population in the middle of the six-
teenth century did not probably exceed six
hundred thousand souls. The estimate is ap-
proximate only; there are no statistics which
can be implicitly trusted. For a nation which
was forced to play a great part in the Euro-
century : " Leaving the castle,
I descended lower to the city,
wherein I observed the fairest
and goodliest street one-half
an English mile from the Castle
to a faire port which they called
the Netherbow, and from that
port the street which they call
the Kenny-gate is one quarter
of a mile more, down to the
King's Palace, called Holy -rood-
house ; the buildings on each
side of the way being all of
squared stone, five, six, and
seven stories high, and many
by -lanes and closes on each side
of the way, wherein are gentle-
men's houses, much fairer than
the buildings in the high street,
for in the high street the mar-
chants and tradesmen do dwell,
but the gentlemen's mansions
and goodliest houses are ob-
scurely founded in the afore-
said lanes ; the walls are eight
or ten foote thick, exceeding
strong, not built for a day or
a week or a month or a year ;
but from antiquity to posterity
for many ages." [Since this
chapter was in type, some in-
teresting information on the
topography of Old Edinburgh,
by Professor David Masson,
has appeared in the ' Scotsman'
newspaper.]
The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
pean politics of the age, the number seems to
us insignificant ; but, with our " teeming mil-
lions," we are apt to forget that the influ-
ence of a nation does not necessarily depend
on its numerical superiority. Athens, in her
prime, had only three hundred and fifty thou-
sand citizens ; the population of Judea did not
exceed a million and a quarter. Before the war
of the Succession, which placed Robert Bruce
on the throne, the population of Scotland had
probably been as great as it was in the be-
ginning of Mary's reign ; but three centuries of
bloody wars and disastrous feuds had effectually
arrested the natural growth. During the forty
years of comparative tranquillity which followed
there was a rapid rise. Because of the long
truce, as Buchanan observes of an earlier pause
in the slaughter, " there were more young men
in the country." When James VI. ascended
the English throne in 1603, his Scottish sub-
jects numbered about a million.
It is difficult to believe that the ruler of
this handful of people could on occasion bring
twenty or thirty or forty thousand men into
the field. The number of Scotsmen who fought
at Flodden has been possibly overstated by our
earlier writers ; yet there seems no good reason
to doubt that at least thirty thousand men-at-
arms were gathered upon the Boroughmuir.
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 45
But when we remember that every man and
boy between sixteen and sixty years of age was
"liable to serve, the difficulty is to some extent
removed. The population of Scotland according
to the census of 1881, slightly exceeded three
millions and a half. Of this number nearly one
million males were between the ages of sixteen
and sixty. Assuming that the population is
now six times greater than it was in the reign
of James IV., and that the proportion of avail-
able males to the whole population remains
about the same, there must have been in 1513
considerably upwards of one hundred thousand
men capable of bearing arms. On a grave
national emergency, and when the great nobles
were cordially united, it is quite possible that
at least a third of this number thirty or forty
thousand more or less disciplined retainers
may have followed the king to the field.
From the point of view of the social and
political observer, the people of Scotland during
the sixteenth century might have beeen roughly
classified as Borderers, Lowlanders, and Celts,
the inhabitants of the Border dales, of the Low-
land counties along the eastern seaboard, and
of the wild and mountainous districts, Highland
and Island, lying behind the chain of the Gram-
pians. In constructing a picture of the Scotland
of Mary Stuart these broad lines of demarca-
46 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
tion must be habitually recognised. Impassable
marshes where the bittern and bustard lodged ;
broad meres haunted by water-fowl ; masses of
primeval forest from which the wild creatures
of the chase the wolf, the boar, the red-deer
had not yet been driven ; a scanty strip of
arable land round the unfrequent hamlet, and a
considerable breadth of pastoral country, rising
through meadow-grass and bent and heather, to
the stony infertility of the surrounding moun-
tains ; the splendid and imposing houses of the
religious orders, the fortified castles of the nobles,
the wretched cabins of the peasantry; these were
common to each. But while among the wilds of
Liddesdale and Badenoch the people were in a
very rudimentary stage of civilisation, were not
yet weaned from the savage ways of their an-
cestors, Fife and the Lothians were compara-
tively settled. " Fife and the Lothians " is a
convenient colloquial expression much in use at
the time; but "Fife and the Lothians" really
represented a much wider territorial area an
area extending on the one hand to Glasgow, and
on the other to Elgin or Aberdeen. Trade,
agriculture, commerce historical, ecclesiastical,
and legal culture the amenities of social and
domestic life the political forces which deter-
mine the form of government, were to be found
there, and there only. The capital, the univer-
The Scotland of Mary Stuart, 47
sity towns, the rising burghs, the thriving sea-
ports, were included in the "inland counties,"
from which the outlaws of Athol and Badenoch
and the broken men of the Border "stark
mosstroopers, and arrant thieves " were ex-
cluded by Act of Parliament. 1
Of the outlying districts, the Border country
was most intimately associated with the general
history of the time, and exercised the most
direct influence upon the course of events.
The rain-cloud that sweeps the sides of Ettrick
Pen helps to fill the Tweed, the Annan, and the
Esk ; and the configuration of the Border dales
will be best understood if we take our stand on
one or other of the peaks of the range of which
Ettrick Pen is probably the true summit. To
1 Marie of Lorraine, the Queen
of James V., landing at Fife
Ness, rode to St Andrews,
where she was met by the
bridegroom. "When the Queen
came to her palace, and met with
the King, she confessed unto
him, she never saw in France,
nor no other country, so many
goodly faces in so little room, as
she saw that day in Scotland :
For she said it was shown unto
her in France, that Scotland
was but a barbarous country,
destitute and void of all good
commodities that used to be in
other countries ; but now she
confessed she saw the contrary:
For she never saw so many fair
personages of men, women,
young babes, and children, as
she saw that day." There may
have been a touch of flattery
in this speech ; but other
travellers were struck in the
same way ; and the " East
Neuk of Fife" was probably
in the reign of James V. the
most settled and progressive
district in Scotland.
48 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
the north and north-east we have the valley of
the Tweed, to the south and south-west the
valleys of the Esk and the Annan. The Tweed
falls into the German Ocean ; the Esk and
Annan into the Solway. The tributary valleys
of the Tweed are those through which the
Ettrick, the Yarrow, the Leader, and the Teviot
flow. All these, except the Leader, descend
from the hill-country which lies to the south ;
the Leader alone, issuing from the Lammer-
muirs, belongs to the north. Speaking gener-
ally, it may be said that the basin of the Tweed
comprehends the whole of the fertile strath that
lies between the Lammermuir and the Cheviots.
Melrose, Dryburgh, Roxburgh, Kelso are built
on the banks of the main stream ; Branxholm
stands on the Teviot ; Ferniehurst on the Jed.
This is the Scott and Ker country, the Lords
of Buccleuch and the Kers of Ferniehurst and
Cessford. Crossing the hillside above Branx-
holm we reach the system of valleys whose
combined waters ultimately form the Esk
Eskdale, Ewesdale, Wauchopdale, and Liddes-
dale. Dwelling close to the Border among
wellnigh inaccessible marshes (the Debateable
Land of Canonbie, Morton, and Kirkandrews,
the cause of constant strife), the men of these
dales Armstrongs, Elliots, Grahams, and Littles
were exceptionally turbulent and troublesome.
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 49
The " thieves of Liddesdale " had an ill repute,
and defied with impunity the Scottish and
English Wardens. " The Armstrongs of Liddes-
dale," Magnus wrote in 1526, "had reported
presumptuously that they would not be ordered,
neither by the King of Scots, their sovereign
lord, nor by the King of England, but after
such manner as their fathers had used before
them." Hermitage Castle was the only con-
siderable place in these remote and lawless
valleys. Built by Nicolas de Soulis, it had
afterwards come to be a stronghold of the
Douglas. On the overthrow of the great house,
the Hepburns of Hailes appear to have assumed,
by a rather loose kind of hereditary title, the
Wardenship of the Middle Marches, and Hermit-
age passed into their hands. Annandale is the
last of the true Border dales ; for Nithsdale,
which is sometimes classed along with them, is
separated from England by the broad waters
of the Solway. The " great names " in these
western valleys were Jardine, Johnstone, and
Maxwell. The dales must at that time have
been populous, on a week's notice seven thou-
sand men could be raised in Nithsdale, Annan-
dale, and Liddesdale alone.
The fighting men of the Border were all
mounted. As light irregular cavalry, as scouts
in a difficult country, their services to a more
VOL. I. D
50 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
organised force were often invaluable. The
Border nags were slight, but wiry and inde-
fatigable, and perfectly suited for Border travel
and Border warfare. They could pick their
way with admirable sagacity along the narrow
and slippery tracks that crossed the quaking
mosses of Tynedale or Tarras ; they could
clamber like goats across a mountain -pass or
up the bed of a torrent ; in the darkest night,
through the wildest storm, the natural w T ariness
which they shared with the fox and the foumart
could be implicitly trusted. The man who had
lost his arm was not more helpless than the
Borderer who had lost his horse. On the other
hand, when man and horse were well mated,
the mosstrooper was a formidable foe. In his
steel bonnet and leather jacket, " dagg " or
" hackbut " at his saddle-bow, and a Jedburgh
stave or jack-spear ready to his hand, he could
ride forty miles between dusk and dawn, and
then swoop like a hawk upon a hostile clan or
the " auld enemy " of England. They were not
gipsies ; they clung with persistent fidelity each
man to the dale where he was born ; but the life,
if not nomadic, had no element of stability or
permanence. The beacon-fires which sent the
news of a raid from peel to peel were constantly
blazing. By the time the slogan of the free-
booters was heard, the cabins had been unroofed
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 5 1
and dismantled, the women and children, the
sheep and cattle, had been huddled within the
thick walls of the neighbouring castle, and the
men had ridden off through moor and moss to
rally the outlying retainers of their chief. Re-
parabit cornua Phoebe was the motto of the
Scotts of Harden. It might have been adopted
by the Border men in general. They were, in
FalstafFs phrase, "Diana's foresters, gentlemen
of the shade, minions of the moon." Passion-
ately fond of the chase, the "mysteries of woods
and forests " appealed to the imagination of the
Borderer with peculiar force. But the moon-
light ride across the hills, with the prospect of a
sharp skirmish and a rich haul of " nolt " and
nags on the other side of the water, was a still
finer joy. It was a cruel, lawless, and anarchic
society ; yet it had at the same time some of the
virtues which a more polished community is apt
to lose. The Eed Indian is a Eed Indian to the
end ; but the Border blood was good. Though
entirely illiterate, the Dalesmen were not devoid
of imagination. The plaintive wail of the Border
ballad, the echo of an earlier minstrelsy, has still
to a Scottish ear a charm of its own. They were
brave and fearless ; devout after a fashion ; bribe
or menace could not shake their fidelity. The
unwritten laws of Border honour were inflexibly
maintained by thieves and outlaws. A traitor
52 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
coming among them fared badly. He was a
marked man, and had short shrift. The Judas
who betrayed the fugitive Northumberland was
never forgiven. "To take Hector's cloak" be-
came a proverbial term of reproach.
About the time of Hector's treachery one of
Cecil's emissaries made his way into Teviotdale,
where the Earl of Westmorland was in hiding
amongst the Kers. Constable was an abom-
inable scoundrel ; but his narrative is bright and
animated. The devil quotes Scripture, we are
told; and the familiar letters of Elizabeth's
ministers, in which, while invoking the coun-
tenance of the Almighty in language borrowed
from the Psalms and the Prophets, the basest
intrigues are unblushingly disclosed and dis-
cussed, simply amazes us. The obliquity of the
puritanic conscience, the deadness of the moral
sense in profoundly moral men, is an almost
unaccountable phenomenon; we can have no
doubt of the sincerity of their religious zeal, and
yet they lied like troopers. What is the explan-
ation ? Constable had a keen perception of the
infamy of his mission ; yet Cecil himself could
not have applied the salve of the public well-
being to his conscience with more unctuous
adroitness. He sincerely trusts that Elizabeth
will be merciful ; for he could never forgive
himself if his victims were brought to the block.
The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
53
" If it should turn to the effusion of their blood,
my conscience would be troubled all the days of
my life." His guides, though thieves and out-
laws, were quite incorruptible ; his own mission,
he admits, was intrinsically base. " This be a
traitorous kind of service that I am w T ayded in,
to trap them that trusted me, as Judas did
Christ." The men he was bribed to betray were
his own kith and kin, old friends and neigh-
bours ; and he praises Lady Westmorland
against whose husband's life he was plotting
with affectionate if discriminating enthusiasm,
"a faithful servant of God; a dutiful subject
to the Queen's Majesty ; an obedient, careful, lov-
ing wife to her husband ; and of a ripeness of wit,
readiness of memory, and plain and pithy utter-
ance of her words. I have talked with many,
but never with her like." 1 One is glad to know
that the fugitives escaped, and that his own
experiences were not altogether pleasant. "I
came furth of Scotland on Sunday, the extremest
day for wind and snow that ever I rode in ; "
"I dare not ride over the fells without more
company, for I was in great peril meeting a
company of Scots thieves on Thursday at night
last." But, as I have said, the fellow wrote
1 Lady Westmorland was
Anne Howard, daughter of the
Earl of Surrey, and sister of the
Duke of Norfolk.
54
Tlie Scotland of Mary Stuart.
admirably, and no livelier picture of the interior
of a Border peel has been preserved.
" So I left Ferniehurst and went to my host's
house, where I found many guests of divers
factions, some outlaws of England, some of Scot-
land, some neighbours thereabouts, at cards ;
some for placks and hardheads ; and after that
I had diligently learned and inquired that there
was none of my surname that had me in deadly
feud, nor none that knew me, I sat down and
played for hardheads amongst them, where I
heard vox populi that the Lord Eegent would
not for his own honour, nor for honour of his
country, deliver the Earls, if he had them both,
unless it were to have their Queen delivered to
him ; and if he would agree to make that ex-
change, the Borderers would start up in his con-
trary, and reive both the Queen and the Lords
from him, for the like shame was never before
done in Scotland, and that he durst better eat
his own ' lugs ' than come again to seek Fernie-
hurst ; if he did, he should be fought with ere he
came over Soutra Edge. Hector of Harlow's
head was wished to have been eaten amongst
us at supper." 1
1 .<Eneas Sylvius, one of the
Piccolomini, afterwards Pius
II., who was in Scotland in
1413, found the Borderers, lay
and clerical, much inclined to
conviviality. At a merry meet-
ing in a priest's house on the
English side of the Border,
which had been prolonged into
the small hours, there was an
TJie Scotland of Mary Stuart. 55
George Buchanan was a native of the Lennox
from the hamlet of Moss near Killearn, where
he was born, the mountains round Loch Lomond
are plainly visible and his notices of the neigh-
bouring highlands and islands, with which he
was familiar, are lively and valuable. From
Buchanan (from Buchanan supplemented by
Leslie, Monro, and other contemporary writ-
ers) a sufficiently accurate picture of the Celtic
mountaineer of Mary's reign may be obtained.
In the earliest Scottish maps the "Mounth" is
the dividing line between Highland and Low-
land ; and the " Mounth " is an extension of
the Grampian chain, stretching from the Dee
on the one side of the island to the Linnhe
Loch on the other. "Le Mounth ubi est pes-
simum passagium sine cibo," is an entry that
indicates with perfect exactness the feelings
about the mountain -barrier, and the country
behind it, which was then common in the " inland
counties." Mary went to Inverness by the level
road along the east coast ; yet of that holiday
ride Eandolph, who accompanied her, wrote :
" From Stirling she taketh her journey as far
north as Inverness a terrible journey both for
horse and man, the countries are so poor and the
alarm after midnight that the
Scotch mosstroopers were near
at hand, whereupon the jovial
company broke up, and took
refuge without delay in the
neighbouring "peel."
56 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
victuals so scarce. It is thought that it will be
a journey for her of two months and more."
The confused chaos of hill and valley lying
along the " Deucaledonian Sea," which occupies
an uncertain space in the older maps, is described
by their authors as the favourite haunt of shy
and savage creatures which elsewhere were gra-
dually disappearing. " Hie maxima venatio."
" Hie habundant lupi." It was the country of
the red-deer and the wolf; in a still earlier age,
of the wild boar and the beaver. Eobbers were
numerous upon the land, pirates upon the water ;
yet even along that remote and dangerous coast
peaceful industries had begun to establish them-
selves.
Buchanan's survey takes us along the coast-
line from Ailsa Craig to the Shetland Islands.
Kyle and Galloway, he tells us, were richer in
flocks than in corn. The people salted and ate
the eels which were caught in all the lochs in
vast numbers a curious fact ; for though still a
favourite fish in England, the lower classes in
Scotland would now as soon think of eating an
adder or a toad as an eel. The light and sandy
soil round Ayr was better fitted to produce
brave men than corn and cattle ; but the town
itself was already a thriving seaport. The lofty
Ailsa in the offing, then as now tenanted by
multitudes of solan-geese, but inaccessible to
Tlie Scotland of Mary Stuart. 57
man except by a single dangerous footpath, was
resorted to during the summer season while the
cod-fishing lasted by immense numbers of small
craft. To avoid the risk of rounding the Mull,
the seamen entering or quitting the estuary
dragged their light vessels across the isthmus
at Knapdale. Jura was finely wooded, and
abounded in deer ; and lead was obtained in the
rich and fruitful May. The tombs of the kings
of Scotland, Ireland, and Norway could still be
seen at lona. Multitudes of sea-fowl were taken
in Eum, Tiree, and the remoter islands ; in Col-
onsay the rare eider bred ; and herds of seals
sunned themselves upon every sandy beach. At
Vaterza large numbers of fishermen assembled at
certain seasons ; Barra was already noted for its
cod-fishery ; and Skye, where corn, black cattle,
and herds of mares abounded, was famous for its
herring and its salmon. Seals, sea -fowl, and
dried mutton were paid as rent by the tenants.
At a time when kings and queens and great
nobles were passionately fond of hawking, the
trees and rocks where the falcons bred were
jealously preserved; yet what trade there was
with the outside world consisted mainly of fish.
The peaceful merchant trading among the islands
was exposed indeed to no inconsiderable risks.
The western seas, wild and stormy at all times,
were then infested by piratical craft. In the
58 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
wooded island of Kona was a deep inlet " where
pirates lurked." In Uist were numerous caves
covered with heath "the lurking-places of
robbers." On an island opposite Loch Broom
the Celtic freebooters lay in the sheltered bays,
and " kept watch for travellers ; " while South
Gruinart one of the most romantic and charm-
ing districts on the mainland was then, in
Buchanan's words, " darkened with gloomy
woods and infested with notorious robbers."
The northern islanders, the Orcadians and
Shetlanders, had little intercourse with Scot-
land, and traded chiefly with Norway. They
bought their boats from the Norwegian ship-
builders, and sent them in exchange oil, butter,
fish, and a coarse thick cloth, which the women
wove. They were remarkably healthy, and lived
to a great age. One of them who died quite
lately, Buchanan adds, married a wife when he
was one hundred years old ; and in his hundred
and fortieth year was so hale and vigorous that
in his frail skiff he would brave alone the rough-
est seas.
Leslie's description is substantially to the same
effect ; but it contains some additional touches.
The more distant parts of the island are horrible,
he admits, by reason of the Grampian moun-
tains, and " other rough, sharp, and hard hills,
full of moss, moor, and morass." Yet there are,
Tlie Scotland of Mary Stuart. 59
even beyond the " Mounth," some favoured spots
such as Lochaber, of which, indeed, Buchanan
had declared that it was "delightful from its
shady groves, and pleasant rivulets and foun-
tains." At the time when the Bishop wrote,
Loch Broom had become the central station for
the herring -fishing on the west coast ; it was
"copious in herring miraculouslie," and was
resorted to not only by Scotch fishermen, but
by the English, the French, and the Flemings.
A species of goat found on the island of Hirta,
was remarkable for its size and its magnificent
horns. Capercailzie, falcons, eagles, grouse,
black-cock, bustards, and six kinds of geese, are
among the wild-fowl enumerated by Leslie. Of
the wild goose, he says, there is a marvellous
multitude in the west isles, where they are
captured in nets, and domesticated by the
natives. Wild swans do not seem to have been
so numerous on that side of the island ; the Loch
of Spynie and other inland waters on the east
coast having been then, as they are still, among
their favourite haunts. The Orkney Islanders
traded with Holland as well as with Scandinavia
whale-oil being the chief commodity which
they exported. Their horses were very small,
but in labour marvellously durable ; and food
was so cheap among them, that a hundred eggs
could be bought for a French sous of Tours.
60 T/ie Scotland of Mary Stuart.
"And that none think that I speak sophisti-
cally, those eggs of which I speak are hens'
eggs, and new and fresh; and again, that I be
not thought to speak hyperbolicly or above my
bounds, I say less (they shall understand) than
the truth is."
The pirates and robbers, " the wicked thieves
and limmers," " the strange beggars resorting
in great numbers out of the Highlands," against
whom many old statutes were directed, were
outside the pale of Lowland charity ; but of the
people " we call Kedshanks," who occupy " the
mair horrible places of the realm," both Buchanan
and the Bishop speak in eulogistic terms. They
are not blind to their faults, indeed ; some of
which, it is to be feared, the Celt has not yet
unlearnt or outgrown. Leslie, for instance,
complains that " not karing as it war for the
morn," they catch only as many fish as will
serve for immediate use leaving the more
lucrative deep-sea trade to be prosecuted by
others. But the simple, abstemious, hardy life
led by the mountaineers, is cordially praised.
They could go all day without food eating
only in the early morning and at night. Hunt-
ing and fishing supplied them with what food
they needed. They flayed the deer where it fell,
and the skin filled with water served as a vessel
in which to boil the flesh. They naturally de-
The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
61
lighted in blue and purple and other brilliant
colours ; but their plaids and kilts were of a
plain dark brown a colour so like the heather
among which they lurked, that it failed to
attract the eye. Wrapped in their plaids, they
braved the severest storms in the open air
sleeping sometimes even among the snow. Their
beds were composed of fern or heather ; when
they travelled abroad they threw aside the pillow
and blanket with which they were supplied by
their hosts, lest they might grow effeminate like
their Lowland neighbours. 1 They wore an iron
head-piece, and a coat of mail made of loose iron
rings, very light and flexible, "harnest with
jacks all woven through with iron hooks " as
Leslie vividly describes it. The bow was their
favourite weapon (it was retained, indeed, by the
hill-poacher till about the end of last century ;
and among the braes of Eannoch many an
antlered stag fell to the eagle-feathered arrow
1 Some of whom seem actu-
ally to have enjoyed the luxury
of a feather-bed. At least in
the inventory of Archbishop
Beaton's effects (in his action
against Mure of Caldwell), " 23
fedder beds " are included. The
value put upon them is rather
suggestive of rarity, they were
luxuries which, like the glass
windows at Alnwick, were laid
away very carefully when the
owner left. " It were good,"
the steward says in his report
on Alnwick Castle for the year
1567, "that the whole lights
of every window, at the de-
parture of his lordship, and
during the time of his lord-
ship's absence, were taken down
and laid up in safety, until his
return they be set up anew."
62
The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
of Ewen M'Ewen within the memory of people
who were living the other day), though some
carried swords, and others Lochaber-axes. The
Highland Celts, like the Dalesmen, were passion-
ately fond of music. They played on bagpipe
and harp the harps of the greater bards being
richly decorated with silver and precious stones.
The praise of brave men and brave deeds was
the subject of their songs, which, Buchanan
observes, were " not inelegant." The caustic
Dunbar, on the other hand, was very hard upon
the Celtic minstrels :
" The Devil sae devt was with their yell,
That in the deepest pot of hell,
He smorit them with smoke." l
The Catholic bishop naturally commends the
constancy of the Celt to the Catholic faith.
The Borderers, who long resisted the preachers
(Norfolk says significantly that the Humes and
the Kers sided with the Congregation for the
expulsion of the French, but were not inclined
to them in matters of religion), were won over
at last ; but the new doctrines failed to cross
1 The serenade of bagpipes
to which Mary was treated on
her arrival at Holyrood is
noticed by Brantome : " He !
quelle musique ! et quel repos
pour sa nuit ! " " She was so
weill pleased with the melody,"
Calderwood observes, " that she
willed the same to be continued
some nights after." I suspect
it was to the same favourite
musical instrument that Frois-
sart alludes "it seemed as if
all the devils of hell had been
there."
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 63
the mountain-barrier, and in Highland glen and
western island the people continued to worship
as their fathers worshipped before the days of
Knox. Amongst the Eedshanks he continues
is continual battle. The greater of degree
and the nobler of blood is in the war the fore-
most. Their prince or captain they hold in such
reverence, that for his cause or at his command
they will venture their own life, be the danger
or death never so bitter. If at any time they
are free from war, they spend it not in idleness
or vanity or auld wives' fables, but in making
the limbs of their bodies more firm and fit by
running, fencing, and wrestling. Even the wild
beasts of the forest they run down on foot. No
men thus are less delicate than the Redshanks,
or less given to voluptuous and fleshly pleasures.
And in the same manner of way they bring up
their "bairns" in shooting of arrows, in feed-
ing of horses, in casting darts, in hearing of the
men of renown in whose footsteps they are
to tread. 1
So much for the Redshank of Mary's reign.
It was a hard life that he led ; according to
modern standards he was little better than a
1 Condensed from Leslie. Society by Father E. G. Cody.
The amusing translation into The Western Islands were visit-
the vernacular by Father James
Dalrymple, has been recently
edited for the Scottish Text
ed by Dean Monro, who de-
scribes the tombs of the Kings
at lona, in the year 1549.
64 TJie Scotland of Mary Stuart.
savage ; and the modern historian waxes merry
at his expense. A paradoxical Froude or a
quixotic Kuskin may possibly be inclined to
maintain, indeed, that the education which
makes men simple, hardy, brave, and frugal is
not to be despised. How many a scholar from
Eton or Oxford could spend the winter night
among the heather a mouthful of oat-cake for
supper, a "green turf" for a pillow, the North
Star straight overhead and rise at daybreak
with the moorcock and the whaup ?
When we descend from Border peel and High-
and clachan to the low countries lying mainly
along the eastern seaboard, we come among a
people who, in spite of domestic feuds and the
weakness of the central government, are com-
paratively peaceful and civilised. Except when
civil war was actually raging, the itinerant
"chapman" might carry his pack from Glas-
gow to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to St An-
drews and Perth and Aberdeen, without much
risk. There was no general or organised police
force to render life and property secure ; but,
continual anarchy being insupportable, an im-
plicit understanding existed among the greater
barons that each within his own territory
would be responsible for the maintenance of
some degree of order. The extensive woods,
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 65
which at an earlier period had covered the coun-
try, had been destroyed. Only a fragment of
the Silva Caledonia remained. Timber was
scarce, and in those districts where peat could
not be obtained, the people were badly off for
fuel. But the removal of almost impassable
thickets had been attended with one advan-
tage : the outlaw the robber and the assassin
was deprived of a secure retreat. He could
no longer shelter himself in the gloomy and
inaccessible depths of a forest which stretched
from Loch Awe to the Border. Other savage
creatures, too, were scared away. The red-deer
could still roam across the heather; but when
the forest fell before fire or axe, the wolf was
fain to retreat to Badenoch or Lochaber.
When these changes came about it is difficult
exactly to determine. In the country of Buchan,
which, before the breaking out of the English
wars, was densely wooded, no tree will grow.
The oaks which are dug out of the mosses bear
upon them the marks of fire ; and the popular
fancy in consequence attributes their destruction
to some great social convulsion possibly the
" harrying " of the district by Eobert or Edward
Bruce. We know that the contemporary earl
petitioned Edward I. to grant him maremium,
in consideration of the losses he had sustained
by the war. Edward acceded to the request,
VOL. i. E
66 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
and allowed him fifty oaks yearly out of the
royal forests "in Buchan and Kintore." From
this it would appear that the then earl one of
the great house of Comyn had been attacked,
and his district " harried," some time before the
final defeat on Aiky Brae sent him an exile to
the English Court. The abundance of the bog-
oak in countries where, through " the penuritie
of wood," the people burnt peat alone, aston-
ished the writers of the time. " But how has
such great and wide woods ever there grown,
where now by no art or craft of man, will not
so much as ane small wand grow (the ground
is so barren), we cannot marvel enough." One
considerable calamity, indeed, is probably con-
nected with the ruin of the forest that stretched
along the eastern seaboard. Large tracts of
arable and pasture land which the wood pro-
tected are now covered with sand. The whole
parish of Forvie, burgh and landward, has been
" ouircassen." The vast sand-hills of Foveran,
over which one can tramp for hours, were, we
are told, "formerly flowery meadows." A de-
lightful naturalist, who died only the other day,
has described, with -singular vividness, the barren
bents between Spey and Findhorn ; these barren
bents were once the mos-t fertile lands in Moray.
The light flakes have drifted across the chapel
of Pittulie, the tower of Kattray, the church at
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 67
Cruden, which was built by King Malcolm in
memory of the nobles who fell in his last battle
with the Danes. " The kirk that was biggit to
this effect," Bellenden says, " as afttimes occuris
in thay partis, was ouircassen by violent blasts
of sandis." The mischief became so threatening,
that in the next century the Scottish Parlia-
ment, " considering that many lands, meadows,
and pasturages lying on the sea-coasts have
been ruined and overspread in many places of
this kingdom," punished with fine and imprison-
ment the offence of pulling up by the root the
bent or bushes of juniper that gave solidity to
the shifting soil. It was probably the fringe
of low and fertile land along the shore that was
first brought into cultivation, and which at one
time had been most densely peopled ; and the
great sand-banks of Moray and Aberdeenshire
may thus preserve unhappily beyond reach
of the most congenial Dryasdust some unique
records of a perished society.
There can, I think, be little doubt that what-
ever was best and worthiest in Scottish life for
several hundred years, was to be found in one
form or other in connection with the great re-
ligious houses the abbeys and monasteries
which were planted in nearly every district,
however remote and however inaccessible. The
missionary genius of the Catholic Church had
68 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
been stronger than stormy strait, or rugged
mountain, or inclement sky. The massive
strongly fortified square towers, with their
picturesque roofs and gables, and turrets and
bastions, which rose darkly against wood and
hill from every coign of vantage, might more
readily attract the eye ; yet it was not in the
noble's castle, but in the monastic buildings
lying along the river -bank in the sheltered
valley below, that the sacred flame of liberal
culture, of polite learning, of a humane civil-
isation, was encouraged to burn. The Abbey
Church of Haddington was emphatically "the
Lamp of Lothian " : and from age to age, from
Kirkwall to the Border, such lamps had been
lit. The moral, spiritual, intellectual illumina-
tion of the people what of it there might be
came from them. That the religious orders in-
creased and multiplied inordinately, need not be
denied ; and it is plain that immediately before
the Keformation (although the evils have been
grossly exaggerated) there was much idleness
and much corruption among the higher clergy.
But within the precincts of each of the wealthier
abbeys an active industrial community (whose
influence had been so far entirely beneficial)
was housed. The prescribed offices of, the Church
were of course scrupulously observed (or if not
scrupulously, at least in a spirit of becoming
TJie Scotland of Mary Stuart. 69
decency) ; but the energies of the society were
not exclusively occupied with, nor indeed mainly
directed to, the performance of religious duties.
The occupants of the monasteries wore the reli-
gious garb ; but they were road-makers, farmers,
merchants, lawyers, doctors, as well as priests.
Up to the middle of the sixteenth century, com-
munication between one district of Scotland and
another was slow and laborious. There were
tracks across the mosses which a pedestrian
could use, and through the heather where a
pack or saddle horse could be taken ; but they
were difficult at all times, and during rainy or
wintry weather, dangerous, if not impassable.
One would have expected that the road along
the coast which led to Berwick, to York, to
London, to Rome the great highroad which
every eminent Scotsman on his way to foreign
Court or famous University had used age after
age would have been plainly marked and fairly
maintained ; but it was not so. Norfolk writes
that the artillery for the siege of Leith would re-
quire to be sent by sea, " by reason of the deep
and foul ways between Berwick and Leith ; " and
elsewhere he observes that the country is ill
suited even for carts. The earliest roads in
Scotland that deserved the name were made by
the monks and their dependants ; and were in-
tended to connect the religious houses as trading
70 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
societies with the capital or the nearest seaport.
A decent public road is indispensable to an
industrial community ; and a considerable pro-
portion of the trade of the country was in the
hands of the religious orders. They had depots
in the burghs where they stored the produce of
farm and workshop, and booths where it was
sold. The monks of Melrose sent wool to the
Netherlands ; others trafficked in corn, in timber,
in salmon. They were large employers of labour,
and the peaceful peasant in the ecclesiastical
vineyard had rights and privileges which the
serfs of the nobles did not enjoy. Their service
was thus extremely popular, and there is every
reason to believe that they were good and gener-
ous masters. Many of them had been educated
abroad, and had come into contact with the
most enlightened of their contemporaries. Ee-
turning to their native valleys, they brought with
them the wider views and the liberal tastes which
they had acquired at Paris or Bologna. Some
of them had studied medicine, others had studied
law, others Aristotle and the schoolmen. They
became the schoolmasters, the lawyers, the doc-
tors of a community which was protected from
the strife of the turbulent world outside by the
sanctity which attached to the religious profes-
sion. The sons of the great nobles and of the
country gentlemen were taught " grammar and
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 71
dialectic " in the library of the convent ; the
sick arid the maimed were lodged in the hospital.
There was thus ample scope for every taste, lay
and clerical, practical and speculative, from
the monk who looked after the pigs and poultry,
to the monk who illuminated a missal or com-
posed a chronicle. Each community, each order,
as was natural, had its characteristic likings
and dislikings. One house turned out the best
scholars and lawyers, another the finest wool
and the sweetest mutton ; one was famed for
poetry or history, another for divinity or medi-
cine. 1 There were drones among them, no doubt,
but there are drones in every profession; and
whoever fancies that the members of the reli-
gious orders planted in Scotland passed their
lives in sloth and sensuality, is the victim of a
delusion. The courtyard of a Scottish monas-
tery during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies was a busy thoroughfare, which, when
business was pressing, might readily have been
mistaken by a stranger for the market-place or
the exchange.
For some time, however, before the Refor-
mation, the burghs upon the coast, from the
Scottish Sea (as the Firth of Forth was then
1 We are told, for instance,
that polite literature was cul-
tivated at Cupar and Arbroath,
solid learning at Glasgow, his-
torical study at St Colms, and
so on.
72 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
called) to the Firth of Cromarty, had monopo-
lised the general trade of the country. The
burgh from an early period had been regarded
with exceptional favour by the Scottish kings.
Many of the charters which secure the priv-
ileges and define the duties of the burgesses,
are of great antiquity ; and before the unhappy
strife with England had become chronic under
Bruce and Stuart, several of these trading com-
munities had attained prosperity and import-
ance. A considerable foreign trade had been
attracted, and foreign merchants, chiefly Flem-
ings, had established themselves at the chief
seaports. There was at first no common bond
between the incorporations ; but learning in
course of time that union is strength, the prin-
cipal towns formed themselves into trading
confederacies, one of them representing the
northern, the other the southern burghs, as
divided by the "Mounth." At a later period
the northern and southern leagues united in,
what is still known as the Convention of Eoyal
Burghs.
Fife at that time was probably the most dense-
ly populated county in Scotland ; flourishing
burghs, still picturesque in their decay, were
dotted thickly along its coasts ; Buchanan alludes
somewhere to the rich zone of townlets by which
it was girdled ; and the " grey cloth mantle with
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 73
its golden fringe" is the not infelicitous com-
parison attributed to his pedantic pupil. The
Fife seaports make quite a goodly show in the
records of the time Kinghorn, Eaiisferry, Elie,
St Monance, Largo, Anstruther, Crail, St An-
drews, Leven, Wemyss, Inverkeithing, Aberdour.
Considering the extent of commerce at the time,
their imports and exports were considerable.
They exported, we are told, the furs of the
marten and the weasel ; the skins of the goat, the
fox, and the red-deer (at an earlier period, of the
beaver and the sable) ; wool, salt, salmon, white
fish, and oysters, the wool and the salmon
possibly being the staple commodities. The
merchants of Delft, Bruges, Lille, and Rouen,
were their chief customers ; and from the French
and Flemish cities their vessels returned with
the wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux, silk, fine
cloth, the precious metals. The Flemings, who
were settled in various districts of Scotland, had
taught the native craftsmen to carve wood and
work in leather ; but the really fine pieces of
artistic handiwork which decorated the churches
the sacerdotal robes, the illuminated horse, the
gold and silver vessels were brought from
abroad.
One is struck when running over the names of
the Scottish burghs by the absence of any ob-
vious law to account for the growth of one and
74 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
the decline of another. The Fife burghs have'
withered away. Fordoun, "a strong town,
famous for the relics of St Palladius ; " Candida
Casa, "the ancient town and episcopal see of
St Ninian," secure as marked notice from Pit-
scottie as Glasgow and Dumfries. So far as we
are able to judge from the evidence that exists,
the three most important places in Scotland
during the early part of Mary's reign were
Edinburgh, St Andrews, and Aberdeen. Edin-
burgh, " the king's seat, where also is the Castle
of Maidens, a very strong and defensible place ; "
St Andrews, " specially famous for the Univer-
sity, and beautified with the see of the Archbishop
and Primate of all Scotland;" Aberdeen, "be-
tween Don and Dee, with a guidlie universitie,
and two fair bridges, one of seven arches of four-
square stone, verie rare and marvellous, and the
other, ane arch of curious workmanship." As the
key to the northern counties and the Gordon
country, as well as the busiest seaport between
Leith and Inverness, Aberdeen exercised no
inconsiderable influence at an early period ; but
the leading events in the national history had
for some time now been associated with St
Andrews and Edinburgh. Before the close of
the fifteenth century, Edinburgh had become
the political, St Andrews the ecclesiastical, cap-
ital of Scotland.
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 75
"Our towns," Leslie remarks, "we fortify not
with walls." It had at no period been the
custom of the Scot to place his trust in stone
and lime ; and his rulers had taken care that the
security of walled cities should not tempt him
to become indolent in the use of arms. Bruce
had advised his countrymen never to risk a
pitched battle ; and Douglas loved better to hear
the lark sing than the mouse cheep. So long
as they could retire upon a barren and hungry
morass they were invincible ; for they laid waste
the country as they passed, and the "auld
enemy " found little to plunder and less to eat.
The capital itself had not been fortified till a
comparatively recent period, and of all the lesser
burghs Perth only had walls.
The mansions of the feudal nobility were
sometimes erected within the municipal boun-
daries ; but as a rule the great nobles lived at
their own castles in the country, surrounded by
their vassals and dependants. They were by
no means exclusive ; and a rude but abundant
hospitality was extended to every kinsman how-
ever remote, and to any stranger who passed
within hail. Hostelries had been established by
James I. in burghs and market towns ; but in
the landward districts they were few and of ill
repute, and except where the hospice of the
monk took the place of the tavern, the passing
76
The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
traveller could not but fare badly. 1 The houses
of the peasantry were miserable cabins, thatched
with reeds or straw, dark, narrow, and noisome,
"wherein the people and the beasts," as Pit-
scottie says, " do lie together." No one can help
feeling that the architecture of the Border peel
is entirely in harmony with the character of the
country ; it is as much a product of the soil in
which it is rooted as the heather and the birch ;
and the same remark applies, a few notable ex-
ceptions notwithstanding, to the castles of the
Scottish nobles in general. The towers scattered
over the Lowlands were such as those in which
the Maitlands dwelt Lethingtons on a slighter
and less ambitious scale ; the idiomatic expres-
sion in stone and lime, if I may use the expres-
sion, of the temper of a warlike race hardy,
defiant, severely simple, rudely independent, as
their own lives. The rudeness of the life, in-
deed, has possibly been exaggerated. If we can
trust the letters and documents that remain,
Hugh Rose of Kilravock, in his pleasant castle
on the Nairn, bore a near resemblance in tastes
and habits, in likings and dislikings, to the
1 The monasteries both in
England and Scotland were
extensively used for the enter-
tainment of travellers, many of
them being in remote and se-
cluded districts where no other
shelter could be obtained. Thus
it was urged on behalf of Hex-
ham that there was no house
within many miles.
The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
77
country gentleman of to-day. Many conve-
niences of modern civilisation were no doubt
lacking. He had no railway, or telegraph, or
post-office, or daily paper ; but these are not
indispensable to "plain living and high think-
ing," and the cultivation of a wholesome national
life. A man may be wise, sagacious, and politic
who eats his black pudding off a pewter plate,
and swallows his black broth with a wooden
ladle.
" Aut quis
Simpuvium ridere Numae, nigrumque catinum
Ausus erat ? " 1
Yet the most cultivated taste finds in the
baronial architecture of that age much that is
admirable ; and it is obvious (in some of the
minor arts especially) that the craftsmen, lay
and clerical, had attained remarkable proficiency.
On the polished panel of hall or chapel, a cun-
ning pencil has been at work ; and the heavy
1 The homely simplicity of
considerable Lowland lairds ex-
cited the "Water Poet's" sur-
prise. There were then no
drapers or haberdashers in the
country; and Taylor remarks
upon the plain homespun
clothes of the laird who main-
tained forty or fifty servants,
and dispensed a lavish hospi-
tality, "his beaver being his
blue bonnet; no shirts but of
the flax grown on his own
ground, and of his wife and
daughter's spinning ; and his
stockings, hose, and jerkin off
his own sheep's wool." The
family papers of the Roses of
Kilravock were edited for the
Spalding Club by Mr Cosmo
Innes one of the pleasantest
and soundest writers on Scot-
tish antiquities.
*78 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
oaken cabinets the buist and the ambry in
which the household napery and silver were
stored, are often marvels of quaint and delicate
carving. The dress, too (of the upper classes at
least), was extremely picturesque. The common
people had been required by many sumptuary
laws to restrain their love of fine clothes and
gaudy colours, and to appear (except on holidays,
when a somewhat livelier tint was lawful) in the
homeliest and most primitive homespun. But
the attire of the gentry, especially of the great
dignitaries in Church and State, was sumptuous
and superb. Sir Eichard Maitland, as we have
seen, complains that even the wives of simple
burghers had taken to gold embroidery and deli-
cate lace ; and a rich and elaborate toilet had
always been the besetting weakness (if we so
regard it) of the great Norman noble. Even his
morning undress the light robe of mail which
he wore when hunting or hawking or "harrying,"
must have charmed the eye of an artist ; and
the dress of high ceremonial, the velvet robe or
doublet, lined with rich furs and powdered with
jewellery, showed a thorough understanding
an instinct like that of a Parisian modiste
of the resources of brilliant colouring, and the
harmonious combination of ponderous draperies.
The art is lost ; the modern Englishman in full
dress is a dull and sombre if not entirely ludi-
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 79
crous figure. To the Puritan of the Common-
wealth, to Tribulation-Wholesome and Praise-
God-Barebones, the change from purple and fine
linen to a Quaker-like drab is possibly to be
attributed.
The great bulk of the community outside the
towns, without distinction of class, were em-
ployed in agriculture. A considerable breadth
of corn was sown in the Carse of Gowrie and the
lowlands of Moray ; but the farms elsewhere
were mainly pastoral. The people were shep-
herds, and their "sheep-cotes" are constantly
mentioned in the earliest charters. The occupa-
tion of husbandry, as I have said, was not con-
fined to any one class James the Fifth himself
having been at one time a sheep-farmer on a
great scale. We learn from Pitscottie that the
king had ten thousand sheep " going in Ettrick
Forest, in keeping by Andrew Bell ; " and from
Sadler, that the undignified conduct of his
nephew, in " keeping sheep and such other vile
and mean things," was the cause of lively an-
noyance to the King of England. James might
obtain whatever he needed by plundering the
Church ; why should a king disgrace himself by
embarking in trade ? " That kind of profit," the
envoy was instructed to point out, " cannot stand
with the honour of a king's estate ; " and the true
policy was plainly indicated, " rather by taking
80 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
some of the religious houses, by good and politic
means establish your revenue in such sort as ye
shall be able to live like a king, and yet not
meddle with sheep." James, who was resolved
to have no hand in the spoliation of the religious
houses, turned away with a pleasant jest : "By
my troth," quoth he, " I never knew what I had
of my own, nor yet do."
The pastoral life is associated in idyllic poetry
with simple tastes and abundance of leisure.
Corydon lies on the banks of the stream all day
long, and makes love to Phyllis. If his tastes
are ruder and rougher, he hunts the deer with
his dogs. He has no theatre within easy reach,
but in the village ale-house there is gossip, and
perhaps a song, of a winter night. Pastoral life
in Scotland was probably much like pastoral life
anywhere else only a little sterner, a little
more exacting, than in the South. Foreign
visitors who ventured to cross the Tweed, found
that while the women were easy in their manners,
and "addicted to love," the men, young and old,
rich and poor, were passionately fond of hunt-
ing. The Edinburgh townsmen had their Eobin
Hood and Abbot of Unreason the thousand
distractions of a busy and crowded capital ; but
in the country the love of sport was universal
and exclusive of every other, and the number of
wild animals in early times had been so enor-
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 81
mous, and the forest police so inefficient, that the
passion was easily gratified.
Of the Caledonian bear, famous in the Roman
arena, only a faint tradition remained. He had
been extirpated at a remote period. So (except
at one doubtful station on Loch Ness) had the
beaver. But the wolf, the boar, and the wild
white cattle were still not uncommon. When
Leland wrote, even the southern part of Britain
was covered with immense woods. Needwood
was not far from the metropolis, and Needwood
forest was twenty-four miles in circumference ;
while Channock Chase, the woodlands of Staf-
ford, the wild country round Buxton and the
Peak, connected the midland with the Border
forests. A mighty forest, which included Et-
trick and others, extended from Chillingham to
Hamilton ; further north the Silva Caledonia
ran through Monteith and Strathearn to Athol
and Lochaber. From these vast solitudes it was
difficult to dislodge their savage inmates. The
fierce wild boar routing for acorns or wallow-
ing in the mire lurked among the reeds which
fringed the western meres ; so late as 1617 they
were, we learn, still met with at Whalley. Of
all the wild creatures, however, the wolf was the
most troublesome and the most tenacious. He
was an Ishmael from his birth ; outside the
beasts of venery and the forest, any one might
VOL. I. F
82 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
kill .him and his whelps. But it was difficult to
find their breeding-places, and the young were
cunningly hidden among the rushes, furze, and
rocks of the most inaccessible thickets. " They
were richt noisome," Bellenden says, "to the
tame bestial in all parts of Scotland ; " and the
sheep were folded nightly to escape their rav-
ages. About the Blackwater and Kannoch, the
passes were often rendered dangerous by reason
of the multitude of rabid droves by which they
were infested ; and " spittals " or shelters had
to be provided for the protection of belated
travellers. The western Celts indeed had fre-
quently to seek for burial-places on the islands
along the coast the brutes disinterring the dead
who were buried on the mainland. Between 1427
and 1577, numerous Acts for their destruction
were passed by the Parliament. The last great
outbreak occurred during Mary's reign ; and
though several of the great woods were there-
after burnt down to root them out, they were
not finally exterminated till towards the close of
the seventeenth century. The wild white cattle
were originally denizens of the Caledonian for-
est. They must have been in their prime
indeed they still are noble animals : the cow
delicate and finely limbed as a hind ; the bull of
purest white, with black muzzle and " mane of
snow." Lord Fleming complained bitterly in
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 83
1570, that the Lennox faction had slain and
destroyed the white kye and bulls of his forest
of Cumbernauld, "to the great destruction of
policy and hinder of the common weal." " For
that kind of kye and bulls has been keepit these
many years in the said forest," and the like were
not to be found in any other part of the island
" as is well known." The race, however, is
not yet extinct, if, as is probable, the herds at
Cadzow and Chillingham represent the ancient
breed.
Though the larger beasts of the chase had been
considerably thinned out by the middle of the
sixteenth century, immense quantities of game,
from the red-deer to the golden plover, were
then to be found in every district of Scotland.
Game was a common and favourite article of
food though if it is true that the rank guil-
lemot from the Bass was esteemed a delicacy
among the upper classes, the taste of our an-
cestors cannot have been very fastidious. They
had no Wild Birds Protection Act ; but a close
time for grouse, plover, partridges, and black
game had been prescribed by Parliament, and
extended from Lent to August. There were
Acts also against the taking of their eggs, and
in 1565 the shooting of water-fowl was abso-
lutely prohibited. This may have been the con-
sequence of Mary's visit to Fife in January of
84 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
that year, when, as Knox complains, she was
magnificently banqueted everywhere, " so that
such superfluity was never seen before within
this realm ; which caused the wild-fowl to be
so dear that partridges were sold for a crown
apiece." Such a price was of course entirely
exceptional : in ordinary years, as we learn from
accounts that have been preserved, a wild goose
could be had for two shillings, a swan or crane
for five, a partridge for eightpence, while plover,
dottrel, curlew, wild-duck, teal, lapwing, red-
shank, cost fourpence each. From the royal
household books it appears that in addition to
the birds just named, woodcock, black-cock,
moor-fowl, larks, and sea-larks were usually to
be found in the royal larder.
Both James V. and his daughter were fond
of the chase. Mary was much at Falkland
a charming palace on the eastern slope of the
Lomonds where she could hunt and hawk at
her leisure ; and during the numerous journeys
she made from one end of the kingdom to the
other, she had abundant opportunity to enjoy
her favourite amusement. Historians who have
dwelt upon the indolent and voluptuous habits
of the Queen (they have represented her as read-
ing French novels in bed till mid-day) cannot
be aware that during her stay in Scotland, half
of each year at least was spent in the saddle.
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 85
Until her health broke, after her confinement,
Mary was one of the hardiest of women : she was
frequently absent from the capital for months at
a time moving about from house to house, and
seldom resting at one place for more than a
night or two. Day after day she must have
been in the saddle from early morning till dark ;
and to her companions in these expeditions the
assertion (afterwards made by Buchanan and
others) that a ride from Jedburgh to Hermitage
and back was an unaccountable and unprecedent-
ed experience, would appear sufficiently absurd.
Several records of these royal hunting-parties
have been preserved. James V., who on occa-
sion would, as Pitscottie says, " ride out through
any part of the realm him alone, unknown that
he was king," occasionally took his Court and
the greatest of his nobles along with him to the
hunting-field. The sport in Meggatland, when
Huritly, Argyll, and Athole brought their deer-
hounds, was not confined to the eighteen score
of deer that were slain ; for as the same quaint
and veracious chronicler adds significantly,
" Efter this hunting the king hangit Johnie
Armstrange." At the great Athole hunt in 1529
there were killed " thirty score of hart and hind,
with other small beasts, sic as roe and roebuck,
woulff, fox, and wyld cattis." Again, in the
year 1563 Athole was the scene of a " royal hunt-
86
TJie Scotland of Mary Stuart.
ing," at which Mary was present. For two
months the Red-shanks had been driving the
deer from the surrounding mountains into one
compact body, so that not less than two thousand
red-deer, besides roe and fallow, had been col-
lected in Glen Tilt before the royal party arrived.
One of the Queen's dogs being let loose upon a
wolf, scared the main body, which broke through
the beaters ; yet the slaughter was great. Three
hundred and sixty deer, with five wolves, and
some roes, made up a goodly bag. 1
I have said that St Andrews had become the
ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, it was now
also the scholastic ; though the University of
Aberdeen, a more recent erection, had already
enlisted some distinguished teachers and pro-
duced some famous scholars. Even Leslie, while
deploring the theological heresies which had
taken root in its colleges, was ready to admit
that philosophy and the " humanities " were ex-
1 These monster " huntings "
long continued popular. Tay-
lor, who was in Scotland in
1619, and who had brought
with him introductions to the
Earl of Mar and Sir William
Murray of Abercairney, found
that they had gone to hunt at
" Brea of Marr." He overtook
them at Braemar, where hun-
dreds of Celts, wearing kilts,
drove the deer to the sports-
men, who in the space of two
hours bagged " eighty fat deer."
Among the game, "caperkel-
lies and termagants" (caper-
cailzie and ptarmigan) are in-
cluded. After supper in the
gloaming, they lighted a fire
of firwood " as high as a May-
pole."
The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
87
cellently taught. " The city of St Andrews," he
says, " is the chief and mother city of the realm,
where is a famous university and a notable
school. Would to God," he continues, " they
flourished as well in their theology as they
flourish in their philosophy and other humane
studies !" I do not know if any minute or vivid
picture of its scholastic life prior to the Reforma-
tion has been preserved ; and by the time that
James Melville entered its walls, " the many
fair, great, and excellent bells of St Andrews "
reminding the iconoclasts of the noble church
they had wrecked had been carried off, with
much else that was characteristic of the bygone
time. It is probable, however, from the Bishop's
remark, that the curriculum of " ethnic " or
liberal study at the University did not suffer
any radical change at the instance of the Re-
formers, who indeed, after the first irrepressible
outburst, do not appear to have retained any
considerable influence in that conservative seat
of letters. 1 Though Melville was not born till
1 Melville's account of Knox's
relations with the St Andrews
professors of " the humanities "
appears to show that the Ee-
former was rather apprehen-
sive of the eifects of " ethnic "
or secular learning upon his
scholars. His attitude, indeed,
to the " Auld and New Col-
leges " was strained, if not hos-
tile : it was " necessary above
all things " (to quote his own
words, as recorded by Richard
Bannatyne) " to preserve the
Church from the bondage of
the Universities."
88 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
1556 and among his earliest recollections were
the bonfires that blazed when James the Sixth
was born the narrative of his school and col-
lege career may be held to represent with sub-
stantial accuracy the character of the schooling
which Scotsmen received during the minority
of Mary.
James Melville (the nephew of the more cele-
brated Andrew, but a churchman of mark and
repute in his time) was born in his father's house
of Baldovy, near Montrose, and his early educa-
tion was received in the neighbourhood. His
father, who had studied theology with Doctor
Macabeus in Denmark, and had " sat under "
Philip Melanchthon at Wittenberg, was the
minister of the parish of Meriton, and appears
to have been a mild and sweet-tempered man,
devoted to the little boy whose mother had died
soon after his birth. " A verie honest burges
of Montros has oft told me that my father wold
lay me down on my back, playing with me, and
lauch at me, because I could not rise, I was so
fat ; and wold ask me what ailed me. I wold
answer, ' I am sa fat I may not gang.' ' About
the fifth year of his age the " grate Buik " was
put into his hand ; but as he made little progress
in reading, he was sent when seven to a school,
taught by the minister of Logie. " We learned
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 89
there the rudiments of the Latin grammar, with
the vocables in Latin and French ; also divers
speeches in French, with the reading and right
pronunciation of that tongue. We proceeded
further to the Etymologie of Lilius and his Syn-
tax, as also a little of the syntax of Linacre ;
therewith was joined Hunter's Nomenklatura,
the Minora Colloquia of Erasmus, and some of
the Eclogs of Virgil and Epistles of Horace ; also
Cicero, his epistles ad Terentiam." " I was at
that school the space of almost five years, in the
quhilk time, of public news I remember I heard
of the marriage of Hendrie and Marie, King and
Queen of Scots, Seingnour Davie's slauchter, of
the king's murder at the Kirk of Field, of the
Queen's taking at Carberry, and the Langside
field." " Also I remember weill how we passed
to the head of the town to see the fire of joy
burning upon the steeple head of Montrose at
the day of the King's birth." When he returned
home, his sister Isabel would read and sing to
him " David Lindsay's book concerning the latter
judgment, the pains of hell and joys of heaven,
whereby she would cause me baith greet and
be glad ; " and he himself would rehearse, in the
church of Montrose, Calvin's Catechism " on the
Sabbaths at afternoon." There came also at that
time to Montrose a "post that frequented Edin-
90 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
burgh," and brought back psalm-books and " bal-
lates" of Eobert Sample's making, as well as
Wedderburn's songs.
Melville went to St Andrews in 1571, and
entered in the course of philosophy under Mr
William Collace, "who had the estimation of
the maist solid and lernit in Aristotle's Philo-
sophic. Then he gave us a compend of his awin
of Philosophic and the parts thereof of Dia-
lectik, of Definition, of Division, of Enunciation,
and of a Syllogisme Enthymen, and Induction."
There were thirty-six scholars in the class ; but
a little lad named David Eliston was far away
the best, passing the others "as the aigle the
howlet." "We enterit in the Organ of Aris-
totle's Logics that year, and learnit till the
Demonstrations." " I wald gladly have been at
the Greek and Hebrew tongues ; but the lan-
guages were not to be gotten in the land."
" But of all the benefits I had that year was the
coming of that most notable prophet and apostle
of our nation, Mr John Knox, to St Andrews."
" Mr Knox would sometimes come in, and repose
him in OUT College-yard, and call us scholars
unto him and bless us, and exhort us to know
God and His wark in our country, and stand by
the guid cause, to use our time weill, and learn
the guid instructions, and follow the guid ex-
ample of our masters."
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 91
Melville's later " testimony " does not concern
us here ; but these notices of his early life are
very graphic. Knox is popularly identified with
the institution of the parish school, and there
can be no doubt that he was genuinely anxious
to extend and improve the educational machin-
ery of the time. It does not appear, however,
that during his life any considerable advance
was made. The nobles were greedy ; the minis-
ters miserably poor ; there were no funds avail-
able for the endowment of parochial teachers, and
few were appointed till a much later period.
The schools that were to be found in communi-
ties like Montrose had existed for many years,
and were originally connected with the neigh-
bouring monasteries. The monks were abolished,
but the schools remained ; and though of course
affected by the teaching of the Eeformers, and
reflecting the progress of religious opinion, were
really a survival from the Catholic Church.
A printing-press had been established in Scot-
land before the battle of Flodden was fought
(1507 is the date commonly assigned) ; but the
number of books issued during the next fifty
years was inconsiderable. The editions of pop-
ular poems and Acts of Parliament, printed be-
fore the close of Mary's reign, that have been
preserved, are now rare and costly; a copy of
the Scots Acts, which had been bought for a few
92 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
shillings in 1779, was recently sold for upwards
of 150. Almost all the books published in
Scotland till a quite recent period, indeed, have
become extremely scarce ; they were bought for
use, and not for show, and have, in fact, been
" thumbed " out of existence. The chap-books
that were carried about the country by the chap-
men on their stout little nags were mostly " blas-
phemous rhymes," the concise and not too
flattering criticism which the churchmen who
drew the statute of 1551 applied to such com-
positions as the ' Guid and Godly Ballates.' It
is difficult to determine what proportion of " the
current literature" of the first half of the six-
teenth century in Scotland the contemporary
prose and verse had been committed to print ;
but it may be assumed that it was not large, and
that much of it remained in manuscript, the
manuscript being transmitted from hand to hand,
and copied as opportunity served. The old pop-
ular songs of Scotland, which sprang from the
soil as did the Border ballad, have perished ;
and had it not been for the industry of Maitland
and Bannatyne, even the more elaborate pro-
ductions of a literary poet like Dunbar might
have been lost. Some of his most characteristic
poems, indeed, were included in the earliest
volume printed at the Edinburgh press in 1508
by Chapman and Miller; but the antiquaries
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 93
of the last century were not aware that a single
copy of that volume was in existence. The few
tattered pages of the only copy that has been
recovered are now in the Advocates' Library.
It may be said with very little exaggeration,
that nearly the whole literature produced in
Scotland up to this time had taken the form of
verse. 1 We have now gained, I hope, a more
or less clear understanding of the material con-
dition of the people : unless we know something
of the subjects that enlisted their sympathies,
appealed to their tastes, and delighted their
imagination, we shall fail to understand what
manner of men they were. Religion, politics,
literature, are the three most potent forces that
mould society ; the religion and politics of the age
must be separately treated ; but before I close
this chapter, a brief survey of Scottish literature
as a moral and spiritual factor in the formation
of the Scottish character, as well as the intel-
lectual atmosphere of the men and women who
1 In fact, the only consider-
able work in the vernacular,
written before the death of
adhere very closely to his text,
it has much of the spirit and
vigour of an original work. The
James V., was Bellenden's trans- j first edition of the 'Scotorum
lation of Hector Boece's ' His- Historiae ' was printed at Paris
tory of the Scottish People.' j about 1527, and the translation
It is an admirable specimen of ! appeared in 1536 printed at
the Scots tongue at its best ; Edinburgh by Thomas David-
and, as the Archdeacon did not ; son.
94 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
were the contemporaries of Lethington, may
not be uninviting or uninstructive.
The forms which Scottish poetry assumed be-
tween the age of Thomas the Rhymer and the
age of Sir David Lindsay are capable of broad,
if somewhat rough, definition. Scottish poetry
had passed through three distinct stages : the
writers who found their themes in the medieval
romance had been succeeded by the writers who
found their themes in the national history ; and
these in their turn by writers who may be de-
scribed as didactic the poets of morality, spec-
ulation, reflection, analysis. The last class may
be divided again into the euphuistic and realistic
schools, the earlier didactic poetry being as a
rule distinguished by such extravagance of con-
ceit and fantastic quaintness of invention as we
find in the Elizabethan euphuists ; the later by a
quite remarkable sincerity, simplicity, and caustic
force. Until we come to Burns, indeed, we do
not find anything in Scottish literature more
terse and incisive, more direct and trenchant,
than the satire of Dunbar.
The medieval story of Arthur and his knights
was perhaps the only "light literature" to be
found in the Scottish mansion - house up to
the close of the fourteenth century. James of
Douglas, Lord of Dalkeith, in 1392, made a testa-
ment, in which he left to one friend "all of my
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 95
books of grammar and dialectic," and to another
" all my books as well of civil law and statutes
of the kingdom of Scotland as of romance." The
schoolmen, the statutes of the realm, and the
romance-writers, these were the works, and the
only works, that the library of one of the great
Scottish nobles then contained. Very little,
however, is known of the Scottish romance-
writers. In Barbour's poem, the fugitive Bruce,
to lighten the monotony of their exile, reads to
his friends "the romance of worthy Ferembras";
and there are occasional allusions, in other
writers, to this early form of fiction. The
romance of 'Sir Tristrem' 1 is" said to have been
written by Thomas Learmonth of Ercildoune, the
' Geste of Kyng Horn ' being also ascribed to
him, as well as that strange and fancifully pic-
turesque ballad upon his interview with the
Queen of Faerie, and his descent into elf-land,
which is familiar to all lovers of poetry. Besides
the ' Sir Tristrem ' of the Ehymer, one or two
other fragments of the Scottish romance poet
the most important of which are assigned to
"the gude Schir Hew of Eglinton" have been
preserved. But they are hardly of a stamp to
make us regret that so many have perished.
1 An admirable version of . has been lately issued by the
' Sir Tristrem,' edited by George Scottish Text Society.
P. M c Neill, LL.B., Advocate,
96 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
The poetry is as indifferent as the morality.
The ethical system of the medieval romance is
certainly a very curious and rather perplexing
business. Reverence for the honour of woman
is said to have been the absorbing sentiment of
the knightly religion ; yet there are few of the
heroines of chivalry who do not live in "notour"
adultery ; and the most valiant knight at the
tourney or on the battle-field is commonly the
most dissolute in domestic life. The marriage
vow is never strictly observed, and is constantly
treated with open or implied contempt ; while
the relation between the lover and his mistress
is regarded as far more binding and sacred.
o o
The faithless wife may be extenuated and ex-
tolled ; but the woman who is false to her para-
mour merits the last penalties that the courts of
the gay science can inflict. A generation which
has accepted the Tennysonian version of the
Arthurian legend will be surprised, and probably
shocked, by the strength of the invective which
the learned Roger Ascham directed against the
Knights of the Round Table, and the ladies
whose favours they wore. " In our forefathers'
time, when Papistrie as a standing poole covered
and overflowed all England, few books were red
in our toong, saving certayne books of chivalrie,
as they sayd, for pastime and pleasure, which, as
some say, were made in monasteries by idle
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 97
monks and wanton chanons. . . . This is
good stuff for wise men to laughe at, or honest
men to take pleasure at. Yet I know when
God's Bible was banished the Court, and ' Morte
Arthure' receaved into the Prince's chamber.
What toys the daily reading of such a booke
may worke in the will of a yong gentleman or
a yong maide, that liveth welthely and idlely,
wise men can judge, and honest men doe
pittie."
The songs which the people sung are lost ;
only the well-known lines about the golden age
of Alexander III. (preserved by Wyntown), and
as many about the great victory at Bannockburn,
have come down to us. So that until we reach
Barbour, the first of the annalists, the names
even of the " makeris " have been forgotten.
The notion of throwing the history of the
world into irregular verse could only have
occurred to men who were very ingenious, very
idle, and intensely prosaic. These, for the most
part, were exactly the kind of persons who
undertook the work. The annalists were ecclesi-
astics who had been taught the scholastic philo-
sophy and the scholastic theology. Any kind of
literary occupation must have been welcome to
men of scholarly accomplishment, who, shut up
in remote monasteries, were divorced from the
affections of domestic and the ambitions of public
VOL. I. G
98 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
life. The metrical chronicles in which the fables
of history or the traditions of the people were
reproduced with tedious fidelity in involved and
ungraceful rhyme, cannot be approved as poetry.
But they are valuable to the historian. Though
the men who composed them were not gifted
with the vision and faculty divine, or indeed
with much literary aptitude of any kind, their
accounts of contemporary events may generally
be relied on, and their pictures of ancient man-
ners are sometimes graphic, and always useful
and interesting.
It would be excessively unjust, however, to
class John Barbour with the common herd of
annalists. The Archdeacon of Aberdeen was an
authentic poet.
Barbour was born at Aberdeen in the early
part of the fourteenth century, and he lived till
near its close. He was educated at Aberbroth-
ick, but he frequently visited Oxford (as the
safe-conducts granted by the English King bear)
"for purposes of study." By the year 1375
' The Bruce,' he tells us, was about half finished,
and a few years afterwards a pension of twenty
shillings a-year was bestowed upon him in ac-
knowledgment of his services by King Eobert II.
He appears to have been a voluminous writer.
Wyntown mentions a work on the genealogy
of the Scottish Kings, compiled by the Arch-
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 99
deacon ; and Henry the Minstrel thus alludes to
him in his ' Wallace ' :
" Master Barbour, quilk was a worth! clerk ;
He said the Bruce amang his other werk."
A contemporary of Chaucer, Barbour is entitled
to a place not far removed from that occupied by
the father of English poetry. ' The Bruce ' is
unquestionably a great work. It relates a heroic
story with force, fire, and picturesqueness. That
story had been only recently concluded. Bar-
bour had spoken with the men who fought at
Bannockburn. The hearts of the people still
beat high when they recalled the great victory
which had secured their freedom. To this inti-
mate connection with the actors the animated
earnestness of the poem is to be ascribed. The
interest which the author expresses is not feigned.
He relates a story in which he thoroughly be-
lieves, and which engages his keenest sympathies.
The cause of Bruce is the cause of freedom and
of the Scottish people ; those who have betrayed
it or its friends are traitors to liberty, and as
such are sternly denounced. " In hell con-
dampnyt mot they be." Such is the spirit of the
writer, who was evidently in other respects a
man of liberal cultivation, moderate in opinion,
and, like many of the Scottish ecclesiastics, not
intolerant in religion. His book is in conse-
100 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
quence full of life. There is a glow on the page.
Easy, simple, unpretentious in tone garrulous
sometimes as a village gossip the Archdeacon
fires up, rises into strong, clear, emphatic speech,
whenever any noble deed stirs his imagination or
provokes his sympathy. His cheek flushes and
his pulse throbs. This is the charm of ' The
Bruce.' It is clear as noonday that this cour-
teous dignitary of the Church, who derives ten
pounds a-year from the customs of Aberdeen,
loves truth and freedom and the right loyally,
and hates whatever is mean, or shabby, or base,
or dishonest. His eye moistens when he re-
cords the woman-like tenderness which his hero
extends to the weak ; and the noble words on
freedom come direct from his heart. The figures
who move on his pages are drawn, moreover,
with individual distinctness and distinction of
outline. His insight into character is really fine,
and he sometimes introduces a slight touch of
rare excellence so excessively truthful, delicate,
and refined, that it comes on us as a surprise.
One only of these characteristic touches can be
noted here. Bruce, with his own arm, has barred a
narrow pass against a host of enemies, and when
the battle is over, the soldiers crowd round their
leader :
" Syk wordis spak thai of the king,
And for his hey wndretaking
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 101
Farlyit, and yarnyt hym for to se,
That with hym ay wes wont to be."
They long to look upon him as if they had never
looked upon him before. The great deed has
removed him from them ; he has become strange
to them, as a prophet becomes strange to his
brethren when he returns from the innermost
sanctuary with the glory of the Lord about his
head. This eager curiosity of the companions
who had fought by his side for years, as if the
sight of the hero might help to explain the
heaven-inspired might which he had put forth,
is a fine and imaginative trait.
Andrew Wyntown ought to have been a poet.
His lines were cast in pleasant places. The
canon regular of St Andrews was transferred to
the monastery of St Serf. The Priory of St Serf
was situated on the Inch of Lochleven, not far
from that other island where Mary's captivity
was passed. Here, amid the solitudes of that
lonely lake, " betwene the Lomownde and Ben-
arty," these remote ecclesiastical pioneers, the
Culdees, had planted a religious house at a very
early period. They were succeeded by a colony
of the canons of St Augustine ; and this colony,
about the close of the fourteenth century, Andrew
Wyntown was sent to rule. Culdees and canons
have departed, and the Inch has returned to its
original tenants. The mallard haunts the reeds,
102 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
and the black - headed gull breeds upon the
shingle.
But the peaceful Prior was only an annalist.
He had a tolerable eye for the picturesque, and
his descriptions are sometimes animated enough ;
but, for the most part, his versified chronicle reads
like an inventory. He was a learned man for his
day, and the shelves of the little island library
must have been tolerably well furnished. He
alludes to many of the medieval poets and philo-
sophers, and he mentions by name the author-
ities from whom he derived his materials the
Bible, Orosius, Petrus Comestor, Martinus Pol-
onus, " wytht Ynglis and Scottis storys syne."
Some of the stories which he relates are suffi-
ciently startling, and he believes implicitly in
the marvels which he records ; yet his pains-
taking narrative, especially of events which
happened near his own time, retains a certain
historical value.
Henry the Minstrel once enjoyed a wide popu-
larity. He was the second Homer not because
of his blindness only. But his ' Schir William
Wallace ' is now wellnigh forgotten. It wants
the poetic salt which keeps Barbour's poem fresh ;
and his hero is a Jack-the-Giant-killer a myth-
ical slaughterer who is not believed in out of
the nursery. The Archdeacon of Aberdeen was
a scholar and a politician as well as a poet,
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 103
and his work is penetrated by high intelligence
and a lofty spirit of patriotism ; but Blind Harry
rarely rose above the doggerel sing-song of the
street ballad-monger. The real Wallace, so far
as we can judge, was a sagacious, valiant, and
single-hearted man a martyr whose death con-
secrated a cause that might otherwise have failed ;
but Blind Harry's ' Schir William ' is a melo-
drama of the bloodiest dye, always extravagant,
frequently grotesque, and not unfrequently re-
volting.
The annalists were succeeded by the more
strictly literary poets, whom, for want of a better
name, I call didactic. I have divided them
roughly into euphuists and realists : James the
First and Kobert Henryson representing the
former; Dunbar, Douglas, and Lindsay the
latter class. None of these poets, indeed, were
euphuists in the sense in which John Lily was a
euphuist. An ornate and corrupt diction was
unfamiliar to Scottish ears. Nothing can be hap-
pier or terser than Barbour's style at its best, and
Barbour's supremacy was for long undisputed.
But this simplicity of taste in the case of the
earlier euphuists was mainly confined to the
language. The ideas are grotesque, the forms
artificial, and the machinery where it does not
break down entirely involved and laborious. If
the hero falls in love, he cannot say so plainly
104 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
and be done with it. We have to follow him
to the Court of Venus ; we have to listen to a
long harangue from Minerva and her owls ; and
we have, aided by the Virgin Mary, to propi-
tiate Cupid and the Graces. Elaborate allegories
that are even more tedious are bound up with
this mythological trumpery. " Good Hope "
drives us desperate. The interminable exhor-
tations of " Patience " try the sweetest temper.
Of Henryson's shorter poems, for instance, the
most popular among his contemporaries was that
entitled the ' Garment of Gude Ladyis,' in which
every article of female dress, down to the garter,
was identified with some grace or virtue ! Yet,
curiously enough, though they fantastically dis-
guised the passions and the emotions, in one
respect these writers were always natural. Their
appreciation of the humorous was keen and
true. They attacked abuses with no inconsider-
able force and shrewdness of satire. Their direct
and vigorous ridicule at least never lost itself
in the mists of allegory. It is these parts of
their writings these, and an occasional touch
of unpremeditated pathos that we continue to
read with interest. The mythologies and the
allegories have grown musty and ill-flavoured,
but the scraps of pleasantry are still living.
The story of James I. is a romantic and melan-
choly one. He was the second son of Robert III
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 105
by Arabella, daughter of Sir John Drummond of
Stobhall, his elder brother being that unlucky
Duke of Rothesay who, if the story is true, was
starved to death by his uncle at Falkland. Born
in 1394, he was barely twelve years old when,
on his way to France, he was captured by the
English cruisers. During his captivity in Eng-
land, which lasted till 1424, he resided succes-
sively at London, Nottingham, and Windsor ;
and it was during this period that the Lady
Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somer-
set, granddaughter of the Duke of Lancaster, and
so connected with the blood-royal of England,
excited the romantic love which is described in
' The Kingis Quair.' James returned home with
an English bride, and was crowned at Scone on
the 21st of May 1424. A more accomplished
prince never governed Scotland. He had studied
philosophy and jurisprudence ; he was a painter,
a musician, and a poet a keen hunter and a
dexterous swordsman. Many of these accom-
plishments were rare in his native land, and were
not probably regarded with any particular favour
by an illiterate society ; but the mild and grace-
ful scholar quickly convinced his turbulent sub-
jects that liberal studies had not incapacitated
him for vigorous rule. He kept the nobles in
order, and he reformed the clergy. He founded
the University of St Andrews, and he diligently
106 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
encouraged commerce, literature, and the arts.
His reign is an oasis in the desert of Scottish
history. It was unfortunately cut short. The
King was assassinated on the night of the 20th
February 1437, in the monastery of the Domini-
can friars at Perth, by a party of conspirators
who were in league with his uncle, the Earl of
Athole. The evening before his death was spent
in the usual way "Yn reading of romans, in
syngyng and pypyng, in harpyng, and in other
honest solaces of grete pleasance and disport." 1
If * Christ's Eark of the Grene ' was written by
James (it is now maintained to be of later date,
by argument which apparently assumes that the
existing poem cannot be a modernised version of
an older work), his vein of humour must have
been of no mean order. The fun, if a little bois-
terous, is genial and hearty, and the poem long
enjoyed a more than local celebrity:
" One likes no language but the Faery Queen,
A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green."
The 'King's Quair,' which he dedicates to his
masters, Gower and Chaucer, and in which he
celebrates the attractions of his future consort,
is, however, his best-known work ; and, in spite
1 Every lover of poetry is i is based upon the traditional
aware that Eossetti's fine bal- stories to which this foul nmr-
lad, " The King's Tragedy," i der gave rise.
The Scotland of Mary Stuart 107
of its mythological machinery, contains many
passages sweet, winning, and simple. The lan-
guage, as in the lines beginning, " besy goste,
ay flickering to and fro," is sometimes singularly
happy ; and the picture of the Lady Jane, walk-
ing in the early morning below the window of
the captive King, is fresh and vivid, as if taken
directly from nature.
" G-ude Mr Robert Henryson " (it is thus that
Dunbar alludes to the author of the ' Testament
of Cresseid ') birched the boys of Dunfermline
towards the close of the fifteenth century. The
provincial dominie wrote one or two poems,
simple in feeling and vigorous in style, which it
is hardly fair to forget. Like much of the poetry
of the period, however, they hover in an uncer-
tain way between the true and the fantastic.
Inexpert in the use of their weapons, inexperi-
enced in the management of the passions, un-
protected by the overseeing power which kindles
and restrains, the poets of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries " went aft agee." No supreme
artistic insight kept them straight ; a false note,
in music or in emotion, did not pain them.
Their ingenuity, in short, was their ruin ; they
were sure to run their best feelings to death or
into sheer unnaturalness. Henryson's conception
of Saturn, for example, is freezingly grim ; but
he cannot stop until he has told us that the god's
108 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
arrows are " feathered with ice and headed with
hailstanes " a minute and over-nice conceit
which spoils the picture. One scene only is
entirely and continuously good, and shows the
real power that Henryson possessed. The false
Cresseid, as a punishment for her incontinence,
has been smitten with leprosy ; and, while beg-
ging with her wretched companions along the
street, she encounters her hero-lover, who is re-
turning from a brilliant and successful charge.
She is sadly changed, but there is something
in the bleared face of the leper that recalls to
Troilus the charming grace and bewitching
beauty of Cresseid, " sometime his awin dar-
ling." He gazes upon her in silence for a mo-
ment, casts a purse into her lap, and sorrowfully
resumes his march. That silent interview, that
pause during which, although there is an uncer-
tain and uneasy sense of pain in the hearts of
both, no direct recognition takes place, is instinct
with the true spirit of tragic poetry.
William Dunbar w r as the greatest Scottish poet
of the fifteenth century, having had in any cen-
tury, indeed, few rivals. There is something
about Dunbar which cannot fail to attract. He
is brilliant, satirical, inventive ; his wit is vigor-
ous, and he has a wealth of words, sometimes
solemn and impressive, sometimes keen and in-
cisive ; but the hardy and masculine indepen-
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 109
dence, the direct and personal force of his genius,
is its chief charm. Though he hung about
Holyrood, he was no courtier. He sometimes
condescended to flatter, but he did it with an ill
grace. There was a want of reverence in him,
and of the facility which suits the atmosphere of
a court. A brave, fiery, keen-spirited, irascible
man, rather apt to use unconventional colloquial
language, such I take him to have been. It is
very likely that he was imprudent ; his passions
were hot, and his tongue sharp and cutting. He
felt no pity for folly ; his contempt for baseness
could not be kept decorously veiled ; he attacked
with unsparing ridicule all the impostors, lay
or clerical, of his day. Thus he made many
enemies. He spoke the truth, which cannot be
done on easy terms even at present, and enemies
found many chinks in his armour. Both his life
and his writings supplied abundant material for
friendly criticism. He was obviously a danger-
ous character, a pestilent fellow, who was intol-
erant of convention, and who treated dignified
dulness, however exalted, with scant respect. The
plain speaking of the Two Married Women and
the Widow must have startled an age which
was used to plain speaking. Kind Kittok's ad-
venture in heaven is an audacious conception,
which no later master of the grotesque not
Burns in "Tarn o' Shanter," not Byron in the
110 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
"Vision of Judgment," not Goethe in the
" Faust " prologue has contrived to surpass ;
and we can still figure to ourselves the conster-
nation it must have provoked in precise and
orthodox circles. 1 So William Dunbar never
obtained a benefice, and his life wore away in
penury and disappointment. He felt this neglect
keenly, the sceva indignatio hurt him, as it hurt
Swift. The mortified poet grew more bitter as
he grew old ; made sharper jests, and put more
gall in his ink. Yet, like Swift, he could love
as cordially as he hated; and he praises those
whom he admires the reverend Chaucer, the
moral Gower, Barbour, Henrisoun, and the rest
of the Scottish "makaris" with the ungrudg-
ing warmth of a generous nature. 2
Gavin Douglas was the third son of Archi-
bald, Earl of Angus the famous Bell-the-cat ;
and as a scion of the great house of Douglas,
1 " Scho slepit quhile the morne at noon, and rais airly ;
And to the yettis of hevin fast cam the wife fair,
And by Sanct Petir, in at the yet scho stale prevely ;
God lukit and saw her lattin in, and lewch his hert sair.
And thar, yeris sevin,
She levit a gud life,
And was our Ladyis hen wife ;
And held Sanct Petir at stryfe,
Ay quhile scho wes in hevin."
2 The most elaborate and ac- prepared for the Scottish Text
curate edition of ' The Poems j Society by the late Mr Small,
of William Dunbar' is that :
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. Ill
he occupied a foremost place in the ranks of
the Scottish nobles. At an early age he was
made Kector of Linton, and he continued to hold
that rustic benefice until, in 1501, he was pre-
ferred to the Provostship of St Giles. It was
during this period of his life, and amid the pas-
toral scenery of the Tyne, that he wrote most
of his poems. Two of his brothers and two hun-
dred gentlemen of the name of Douglas fell on
the disastrous field of Flodden ; and in conse-
quence, probably, the plaintive lament, " The
Flowers of the Forest," has been sometimes attrib-
uted to the Bishop. Within a year of her hus-
band's death, the widow of James IV. was united
to the youthful Earl of Angus, the nephew of
Gavin Douglas, and the grandson of Bell-the-
cat. The courtly poet soon became a favourite
at Court, and was destined for the primacy by
the Queen, but, after a prolonged and exciting
struggle, was forced to content himself with the
bishopric of Dunkeld. 1 Though he was deeply
implicated in the violent intrigues of a turbulent
age, the Bishop appears to have been a man of
mild temper, simple manners, and profuse hospi-
tality. "King Hart" and "the Palice of Hon-
1 Even at Dunkeld he had i sent a shower of cannon-shot
difficulties : his rival, Andrew > at the deanery, where the new
Stewart, holding the steeple of bishop was lodged.
the cathedral and the palace,
112 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
our " were once famous poems ; and till a com-
paratively recent date his loose but spirited trans-
lation of the " ^Eneid " might be found on many
a cottage book-shelf. His taste in poetry was
not particularly pure. Eapid and impetuous,
but turbid and discoloured, the style of the High-
land bishop may be compared not inaptly to one
of his Highland streams, during what in Scot-
land is called a spate. In his writings, more-
over, there are few of those satirical or personal
touches which give so keen an interest to Dun-
bar's. He had been up to a certain point a suc-
cessful man. Fortune had smiled upon him ;
the Court had been gracious. A son of the great
house of Douglas could not, even in his fall,
have been exposed to the keen social mortifica-
tions which made Dunbar so bitter.
Gavin Douglas died in 1522, at which time
Sir David Lindsay of the Mount had entered on
his thirty-third year. Sir David was a volumin-
ous writer ; but it is probable that he would
have been pretty nearly forgotten by this time
had he not allied himself with the early Ee-
formers, to whose cause he rendered essential
service.
In Scotland, as in England, the satirical poets
were the vanguard of the Reformation. The
freedom of speech which these writers enjoyed
unchallenged must prove inconvenient to histo-
Tlie Scotland of Mary Stuart. 113
rians who are used to associate the supremacy of
the Catholic Church with a period of gloomy
and inquisitorial intolerance. An occasional foray
was undertaken by the bishops ; but, speaking
generally, the free-and-easy comments of the
popular satirists were left unchecked. The truth
is, that the upper clergy had grown fat, indolent,
and luxurious, and were not disposed to deal
very rigorously with wit and invective, even
when directed against themselves. The Protes-
tant apologist declaims against the corruption
of the prelates, the fact being that they were
not so much corrupt as decrepit. Bored to death
by the monotony of the religious life, mumbling
Latin prayers which meant less than nothing to
their minds, with " no more individual fervour
of belief than of individual levity of disbelief,"
they had reached the stage of spiritual dotage.
Some of them, indeed, it is only fair to remem-
ber, were men of high cultivation, who liked
poetry, and did not care, we may presume, to
burn its professors ; and there were, moreover,
sagacious and virtuous men in their ranks who
were really anxious that the scandals which
weakened their communion should be put away,
that the cancer which was eating into the heart
of the Church should be cut out. The light
artillery of the popular poets was thus permitted
to become a potent, if impalpable, ally of the
VOL. I. H
114 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
Reformers. Henryson had exposed the abuses
of the Consistorial Courts (the crying grievance
of the age); nor had he hesitated to place popes,
cardinals, bishops, and abbots in the infernal
regions, where they
" For evill disponying of thair places rent,
In flambe of fyre were bitterly turment."
In the "Daunce" the fiends laugh heartily
at " the bair schevin necks " of the priests ; and
in the "Freris of Berwick" an admirably
spirited and brilliant dramatic poem, which, I
believe, could have been written by no one ex-
cept Dunbar the vulgar habits and dissolute
lives of the monks are ridiculed with great comic
power. Another poem "A General Satire"
sometimes attributed to Dunbar, sometimes
to Inglis, Bishop of Culross, is mercilessly severe
upon the higher clergy. " Sic pryd of prellat-
tis," who would neither preach nor pray ; " sic
hant of harlettis with thame nicht and day"
had never before been known in Scotland.
Other modes of attack were devised. Comic
and obscene songs were translated into "Gude
and Godly Ballates." Shakespeare, when he
describes the Puritan who "sings psalms to horn-
pipes," refers, no doubt, to this practice ; and a
somewhat similar metamorphosis is alluded to in
" The Merry "Wives of Windsor,"" But they do
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 115
no more keep pace together than the Hundredth
Psalm to the tune of ' Green Sleeves.' "
Sir David Lindsay was probably the first man
in high station who publicly ventured to beard
the clergy. 1 Lindsay, with a remarkably easy
and fluent style, united considerable power of
humorous invective. In his "satiric touch"
there is none of the imaginative richness and
amplitude of Dunbar; yet while the one was
neglected and forgotten, the name of " Davie
Lindsay" was familiar till the other day in
every Lowland cottage. His character, besides,
was intrepid and fearless ; and in " The Mon-
archic," "The Three Estaitis," " Kitteis Con-
fession," and numerous other pieces, he attacked
the abuses of the Church with singular force,
and it must be added incredible plainness, of
speech. (He could be as nasty, indeed, as
Swift at his nastiest.) He ridicules the absur-
1 Calderwood mentions a confessed, that as the priests
black friar, John Killore, who and obstinate Pharisees per-
was " cruelly murdered " upon suaded the people to refuse
the Castlehill at Edinburgh, in Christ Jesus, and caused Pilate
the year 1539. "Friar Killore condemn him, so did the
set furth the history of Christ's bishops and men called reli-
passionin the form of a comedy, gious blind the people, and
which was acted at Stirling in persuade princes and judges
the king's presence, upon a to persecute such as professed
Good Friday, in the morning, Jesus Christ his blessed Gospel.
in which all things were so This plain speaking so inflamed
lively expressed, that the verie them, that after that they
simple people understood and thirsted ever for his blood."
116 The Scotland of Mary Stuart.
dity of the Latin service, priests and people
" nocht understandyng quhat they sing nor say."
He assures his audience that "popes, patriarchs,
and prelates venerable," are made over to sen-
suality and other evil lusts. The bishops have
palaces and places, " and want no pleasure of
the fairest faces." Friars will ready entrance
get, when lords are "haddin at the yet." His
pardoner produces a ludicrous jumble of charms,
the jaw of Fin Macoull, the cord that hanged
John Armstrong :
" Of gude hemp soft and sound ;
Gude halie people, I stand for'd,
Quahever beis hangit with this cord
Neidis never to be dround ; "
and " Verritie " is treated as a delinquent by the
ecclesiastical Court, and put in the stocks the
New Testament, " in English toung, and printed
in England," having been found in her wallet.
Kitty, after some frank and unreserved confes-
sions, is absolved by her priest for a plack,
" And mokil Latyne he did mummill ;
I hard na thing but humm.il bummil."
" The Three Estaitis " was more than once acted
before the Court ; and though it was preposter-
ously prolix "lestand fra nyne houris afore
none till six hours at evin " we can understand
how the spectators must have enjoyed its novel
and racy delineations of ecclesiastical delinquen-
The Scotland of Mary Stuart. 117
cies, and the important part it must have played
in preparing the minds of the people for the
religious revolution that was at hand. The last
performance appears to have taken place on 12th
April 1554, before the Queen and Commons, on
the play-field at Edinburgh ; and the author died
in 1555.
This is briefly the history of Scottish poetical
literature down to the middle of the sixteenth
century. Poetry had reached an age when men
were beginning to weary of grotesque conceits
and scholastic ingenuities, and when reality,
directness, and vital truth were urgently de-
manded. In the literature, as in the religion
and science, of the new era, we find an intense
desire and determination to return to fact. The
fictions of poets, the fictions of astrologers, the
fictions of priests, were put aside ; and the barest
and homeliest truth received a welcome which
had been hitherto reserved for the imposing but
meretricious "idols" of the imagination. The
people were resolved no longer to tolerate a lie,
however fair and comely; but to bring them-
selves without loss of time into tolerably honest
relations with the universe. How far they suc-
ceeded, how far they failed in doing so, is the
history of the sixteenth century.
CHAPTER THREE.
THE FEUDAL SOCIETY.
II TAITLAND who had been engaged in her
-^- service since 1554 became Secretary of
State to Marie of Lorraine in 1558.
It was the eve of the Reformation in Scotland.
The forms of the old society, half military, half
monastic, which had come down from the middle
age, were still in existence ; the system of state-
craft and priest-craft, which had determined the
fate of countless beings for many generations,
though stricken at the heart, still presented to
the indifferent onlooker an unshaken front. The
medieval Catholicism of Scotland, like its medi-
eval feudalism, was still, it seemed, virile and
vigorous. But as we can see now the life
somehow had been eaten out of it ; it was a
house of cards which the lightest breeze would
shatter. The years between 1554 and 1558 may
be taken as the dividing-line between two epochs.
Maitland's political life belongs mainly to the new
The Feudal Society. 119
epoch ; what it is indispensable to say of the old
may properly be said now. The retrospect is
not unnecessary; the historical continuity of
great institutions is not lightly broken; age is
linked to age ; even the Keformers, though they
refused to keep any terms with the ecclesiastical
past, were unable to cut themselves quite adrift.
Civil and ecclesiastical forces working together
had provided some sort of government for Scot-
land. I propose in this chapter to deal with the
Government then existing as a form of the
feudal societies which had once prevailed uni-
versally in northern Europe on its political or
secular side.
When Lethington entered public life, the con-
centration of the administrative, political, and
legislative functions of the State in the capital
had already made considerable progress. The
Sovereign, in a country where feudalism retains
its vitality, has only a nominal supremacy. A
strong central government is inconsistent with
the spirit of a system which, in return for certain
well-defined military services, devolves upon the
great vassals its civil and criminal jurisdiction,
the duty of executing justice and the right to
inflict punishment. Elsewhere in Europe, the
old order was crumbling away, and men had
begun to figure to themselves, however crudely
and vaguely, the large outlines of a new society.
120 The Feudal Society.
"While in France and England the disintegrating
forces, directed by astute ministers and master-
ful rulers, were freely and visibly at work, in
Scotland the power of the great feudatories was
still apparently intact. But though the Baron's
Court might continue to sit ; though the right of
pit and gallows might be retained; though a
Gordon or a Douglas or a Campbell might still
maintain in Border dale or Highland glen a more
than royal state, the spell had somehow lost its
charm. In Scotland, too, the knell of feudalism
had been sounded. The executive force was
being gradually centralised, and the Court of
Session, as a supreme and final court of justice,
had been established. The protracted contest be-
tween the Stuart kings and a fierce and barbar-
ous aristocracy had not been entirely fruitless ;
spite of numberless misadventures, and the per-
sistent ill-luck which dogged them like a shadow,
the Stuarts had ranged themselves prematurely
it might be on the side which in the long-run
was bound to win. Mary Stuart was the latest
victim in the obstinate and bitter struggle be-
tween the Crown and its vassals; and many
causes besides the hostility of the nobles
contributed to her defeat.
Marie of Lorraine became Kegent in 1554 ;
and before 1554 the thirteen ancient Celtic earl-
doms had, with one exception, died out. The
The Feudal Society.
121
exception was Mar, and even Mar was in abey-
ance. It was not until 1565 that Lord Erskine's
right was vindicated by Queen Mary, as in our
own day the right of a later Erskine has been
vindicated by Queen Victoria. Through invet-
erate usage, indeed, the old territorial areas, the
old territorial titles, were, in the main, retained ;
but the tenure had been feudalised, and the
nobles were Normans.
Twice since the rise of the feudal aristocracy
two great houses the one of Norman, the other
of Flemish extraction had attained exceptional
distinction and unbounded authority, the house
of Comyn and the house of Douglas. Some
brief record of their history may enable us to fol-
low the fortunes of the Scottish monarchy from
a comparatively early age down to the period at
which my narrative begins. 1
It was probably the European reputation of
a later Earl that obtained for the "Count of
Buchan" a place among the Scottish auxiliaries
of Charlemagne,
" Quell' avaltor, che un drago verde lania,
El' insegna del Conte de Boccania,"
1 I do not desire to poach on
the preserves of the pedigree-
hunter being well aware that
whoever ventures into that dif-
ficult country does so at his
own risk. The history of these
old families is beset with diffi-
culties, and the casual inquirer
must be satisfied if the broad
outlines of his sketch, as illus-
trative of the national annals,
are fairly accurate.
122 The Feudal Society.
but long before John Stuart was born, the
Comyns had appropriated the name and made
it famous in Scotland. For two centuries the
chiefs of this great house were among the Mag-
nates Scotise. Not many families of the same
importance have been more utterly swept away.
Some chance reference in an old chronicle, a brief
and confused page of the Scottish peerage, a few
crumbling walls along the shores of the northern
sea and among the Border glens, are all that
remain to us of a house that was once more
powerful than the Crown.
This illustrious family whose greatness in
Scotland, according to Buchanan, was never
equalled, either before or since was remotely
of Norman extraction. William Comyn, the
grand-uncle of the first Earl Buchan of the
name, was a pushing ecclesiastic, who came to
Scotland from Northumberland early in the
twelfth century, and was made Chancellor by
David I. His nephew Eichard received from
the Crown Prince the first heritable estate which
the Comyns held in the north, the manor of
Linton Koderick in Koxburghshire. This gift
was obtained about 1150, and in less than a
century thereafter the possessions acquired by
different members of the family Badenoch,
Athol, Monteith, Buchan had made it the
most opulent in the kingdom. Eichard married
The Feudal Society. 123
the Countess Hexeld, the granddaughter of
Donald Bain ; thereby becoming allied with the
reigning family, and acquiring pretensions which
his descendants afterwards attempted to assert.
The favourite minister of William the Lion, he
shared the misfortunes and secured the gratitude
of his master. On their return from the Falaise
captivity, the king rewarded him, along with
other substantial gifts, by making him Justici-
ary, at that time probably the most influential
office in the kingdom. 1 His son William, who
was born in 1163, twice married. Who his first
wife was is not known ; his second was Margaret,
in her own right Countess of Buchan. Richard
and Walter, the sons of the first marriage, were
both men of note in their day, and continued
the latter especially to extend still more widely
the renown and influence of the family. In
1230 Walter became Lord of Badenoch, and dur-
ing the following year obtained, with the heiress,
the ancient honours and vast possessions of the
Menteiths. He died without issue poisoned
by his Countess, it was said and the family of
1 That is to say, if the Jus-
ticiarius Scotiae was the su-
preme judge over the whole
of the Forth ; and the question
of their respective jurisdictions
has not been settled. See Sir
kingdom; but there was also ; J. Graham Dalyell's ( Fragments
a Justiciary of Lothian and a ! of Scottish History,' p. 42.
Justiciary of the kingdom north !
124 The Feudal Society.
his elder brother succeeded to his estates. For
many years the Lords of Badenoch were more
powerful than the Kings of Scotland. Their
properties extended from the Moray Firth to the
Solway; they monopolised the great offices of
government ; they conducted the war, the police,
the diplomacy of the State : at their extinction
in 1306, by the dagger of Bruce, more than
thirty Scottish knights of the name claimed kin-
dred with the house. Black John of Badenoch,
the father of the Eed Corny n, was appointed, on
the death of the Maid of Norway, one of the
six guardians of the kingdom, and was undoubt-
edly the most influential and sagacious states-
man of his age. He came forward as a claimant
during the competition for the Crown, his pre-
tensions being founded upon his descent from
the granddaughter of Donald Bain; but he
quickly withdrew, and in favour, it is said, of
John Baliol, whose sister he had married, an
unlucky connection for the race, as it induced
them to espouse and maintain the English suzer-
ainty, a disposition fatally confirmed by the
bloody misadventure at Dumfries.
Through his second wife Marjory, William
Comyn acquired the Earldom of Buchan. Mar-
jory was the only daughter of the last of the
ancient Thanes, and inherited from her father,
and bestowed upon her husband, a rich and fer-
The Feuda I Society. 125
tile province. Her son, who united in his own
person the offices of Constable and Justiciary,
lived to an advanced age, and was succeeded
by John, the third and last Comyn who retained
the Earldom of Buchan. Earl William was thus
the common ancestor of the Comyn houses of
Badenoch and Buchan. At the extinction of the
family during the War of Independence, the
Buchan branch was represented by his grandson,
the Black Earl ; the Badenoch by his great-great-
grandson, the Red Comyn.
Though the policy of the Comyns during the
period of their supremacy has been freely criti-
cised, it appears to be admitted, even by their
critics, that during many years they represented
a patriotic and national, in opposition to an Eng-
lish, policy. Whenever Buchan and Badenoch
were out of favour at Court, it was rumoured
that English intrigue had proved successful;
whenever they were restored, that the English
faction had been foiled. The address and sagac-
ity of Menteith were successfully opposed to the
crafty arts of the third Henry. No doubt the
powerful Earl was often as dangerous to his own
as to the English monarch. When in 1254 the
youthful Alexander III. returned from England,
Menteith insolently declined to deliver up the
Castle of Edinburgh. In conjunction, moreover,
with the other leaders of the faction Buchan,
126 The Feudal Society.
Athole, and Mar he refused to render any ac-
count of his government during the absence of
the royal minor; and when proceedings were
commenced against him and his friends, he
stayed them in a characteristic way. Seizing
the boy-king at Kinross, he carried him a pris-
oner to Stirling, where he kept him until the
matter was compromised. Alexander III., a
proud-spirited man, probably resented this out-
rage ; but on coming of age he was forced to
pardon it, and take the Comyns again into
favour " by reason of the greatness of the fam-
ily." Towards the close of the War of Indepen-
dence, indeed, they became the firm allies of the
English king ; but this may be attributed to
personal animosity against Bruce, rather than to
any change in their political creed. The Ked
Comyn himself had taken no undistinguished
part in the campaigns of Wallace ; though Wyn-
town says that the house " welle lowed not Wil-
liam the Wallace " ; and that at Falkirk in espe-
cial
" For despite and gret envy
The Comyn's kin all halyly
First left the field."
After that great captain's overthrow, the Eed
Comyn, as Eegent, " took the keeping of Scot-
land," and gained several victories over the
English three in one day at Koslin on which
The Feudal Society. 127
occasion the Prior of St Serf puts into his mouth
a noble and patriotic address to his men :
" We are all commin of Auld lineage,
Of lords of fee and heritage,
That had nothing mair ugsoine
Than to live in thraldom."
But with the proverbial fickleness and faithless-
ness of his race, he continued to intrigue with
either party until the dagger of the Earl of Car-
rick ended his indecision.
The miserable mischance at Dumfries raised
against Eobert Bruce the bitter and relentless
hostility of the race. They pursued him like
sleuth-hounds ; the avenger of Comyn's blood
was always upon his track. With their aid the
English reduced the Castle of Kildrummie, and
captured the chivalrous young brother to whom
Bruce was attached by ties of peculiar tender-
ness. At Kingsland they routed his army, and
nearly succeeded more than once in taking him
prisoner. But at length the tide turned in the
king's favour. Twice the Earl of Buchan met
him at Inverurie. Barbour has described the
meeting in his rugged chronicle, rugged, yet
instinct in every line with poetic and chivalrous
fire ! The Eed Comyn had been slain, and the
Earl had vowed vengeance :
" ' And yarnys mair, na ony thing,
Wengeance of you, Schyr King, to tak ;
For Schyr Johne the Cumyn his sak,
128 The Feudal Society.
That quhilum in Dumfress wes sleyn.'
The king said, ' Sa our Lord me sayn,
I had gret causs him for to slay.
And giff it fall that thai will i'ycht,
Giff thai assaile we sail defend,
Syne fall eftre quhat God will send.' "
But when he came to Inverurie a deadly sick-
ness fell upon the King. Hearing of this mishap,
the Earl assembled his kinsfolk, Mowbray, Bre-
chin, and their retainers, and marched upon the
diminished encampment :
" To the Slenauch with all thair men,
For till assaile the king then,
Was lyand in till his seckness.
This wes eftyr the Martymes,
Quhen snaw had helyt all the land."
During three days the armies looked at each
other, the archers only being engaged in inci-
dental skirmishes, until the royalists thought it
prudent to retire to the hill-country. So they
placed the sick King in the midst of his captains,
and bearing him upon a litter, marched steadily,
with resolute countenance, past the enemy, who
could not muster courage to attack that serried
array of desperate soldiers. The picture, as out-
lined by Barbour, is extremely impressive. The
tumultuous crowd of eager enemies awed into
sudden silence the slow and mournful but un-
dismayed march of the hardy veterans the rude
litter, with the stricken King stretched motion-
The Feudal Society. 129
less upon it, sick unto death, as it seemed, yet
even in his winding-sheet a great, resolute, and
awe-inspiring figure.
The King and the Earl met again in the same
place next spring, when the Earl was utterly
routed. " This victory," Bellenden says, " wes
sa plesand to King Robert that he gat his heil
thairthrow." Barbour asserts that Comyn fled
from the battle-field straight to the English
Court, where " he deyt sone eftre syne." This
account, however, is barely correct ; for the Earl
retreated at first into his own country, where he
was followed by Edward, the King's brother.
At Aiky Brae, near Old Deer, the Comyn fought
his last fight. This Aiky Brae had already
proved an unlucky spot for his race. The
second Earl was killed there, when hunting,
by a fall from his horse. And now, upon the
same steep declivity, the final discomfiture of
the great house took place. The Earl himself
escaped to England, but his clan was almost
extirpated.
The King took, indeed, signal vengeance.
The Comyns were his most bitter enemies ; and
he probably hated them, not only on account
of their unappeasable animosity, but because he
had done them a cruel wrong which lay heavy
on his conscience. So he wasted their country
with fire and sword :
VOL. I. i
130 The Feudal Society.
" He gert his men bryn all Bowchane
Fra end till end, and sparyt nane ;
And heryit then on sic maner
That eftre that weile fifty year,
Men menyt ' the Herschip of Bowchaine.' "
The inhabitants were put to the sword. More
than thirty of the clan were beheaded in one
day, and buried together in "the grave of the
headless Comyns." The great woods of oak
were burned. To this hour the desolation
and nakedness of the district attest the cruel
severity of the punishment that was inflicted.
The name of Comyn was proscribed. Those of
the race who had adhered to Bruce like the
first Buchan of Achmacoy were forced to drop
the hated surname. Their possessions were con-
fiscated, and bestowed on the partisans of the
monarchy. So complete was the destruction,
that " of a name," says a chronicle of the age,
" which numbered at one time three earls and
more than thirty belted knights, there remained
no memorial in the land save the orisons of the
monks of Deer." Nor were these " orisons "
apparently long continued; for the superior of
their once -favoured abbey was present at the
Parliament held at Cambuskenneth in 1314, and
we learn that he affixed his seal to the celebrated
ordinance then directed against the Comyns.
Thus did the good King Robert triumph over
his enemies, not unaided, as the Scottish writers
The Feuda I Society. 131
believed, by more than mortal auxiliaries. On
the day of the battle of Bannockburn, " ane
knicht with shinand armour" appeared to the
people of Aberdeen, and discoursed to them of
the great victory that was being gained over the
Englishmen. So far away as Glastonbury, in
remote Somerset, " the nicht afore this battle,
two men of uncouth habit come to the abbot, for
it was ane abbay of hospitalite, and desirit lug-
ing. The abbot ressavit them pleasandly ; and
quhen he had demandit thame quhat thay war,
and quhare thay war passand to, thay schew,
that thay war servands of God, and send be him
to help the Scottis at Bannockburn. On the
morrow, the abbot fand them away or evir the
yetis were opnit, and thair beddis standing in
the same array as they war left. It was belevit,
thairfore, that thay war angellis, send, be pro-
vision of God, to defend the Scottis in thair just
materis, againis the tyranny of Inglishmen."
The monkish annalists tell us that the Comyns
were " addicted to religion " ; and the number of
religious houses they endowed in Buchan attests
the magnificent patronage they bestowed upon
the Church. Though the fanaticism of the saint
was in those ages not unfrequently combined
with the ferocity of the savage, it is unnecessary
to hold that the popular judgment on the fickle-
ness and faithlessness of this house of " vipers ""
132 The Feudal Society.
was well founded. Often arrogant, rapacious, and
unscrupulous, the Comyns were yet, in the main,
men of virtue, courage, and resource. Their
domestic administration, at all events, more
especially in Buchan, appears to have been wise
and enlightened. When the Scottish monarchy
was re-established, men looked back regretfully
to the golden age that preceded the English
wars. Nowhere could this sentiment have been
felt more strongly than in the district which the
Comyns ruled "the land in the bend of the
ocean " where a rich, fertile, and nobly wooded
plain had been turned into a sandhill and a
morass. The number and magnificence of their
churches and castles cannot but excite our as-
tonishment. During their brief reign, religious
houses, splendidly endowed, were erected at
Foveran, at Deer, at Turriff, and other places ;
and every coign of vantage along that storm-
beaten coast was crowned with tower and but-
tress. The northern pirates found the familiar
landing-places vigilantly guarded, and were often
attacked on their own element by the well-
appointed " galleys" which, by the tenure of their
lands, the northern earls were bound to maintain.
The castle of Kinedar, the feudal seat of the
Earldom, commanded the fertile valley of the
Deveron. Dundarg was built among the waves.
The shattered but massive walls of Slains cling
The Feudal Society.
133
to the rocks that overhang the bay where the
Dane fought his last battle on Scottish ground.
The light sand has drifted across the ruins of
Rattray ; but Inverallochy and Cairnbulg frag-
ments of antique strength and comeliness still
rise above the barren bents, no longer populous
as of yore, and silent save for curlew and plover.
All these Kinedar, Dundarg, Slains, Rattray,
Inverallochy, Cairnbulg were strongholds of
the great house, and were built, it is believed,
during the century of their supremacy. 1
The "War of Independence, like the Reforma-
tion, is one of the great dividing-lines in Scottish
history. What the family of Comyn had been
to Scotland before the war, the family of Douglas
became at its close. The one house rose upon
the ruins of the other. The Comyn had been
supreme upon the marches ; in the course of
fifty years the possessions of the Douglas along
the Border dales reached from the eastern to the
western sea. The dalesmen ranged themselves
behind the banner which bore the bloody heart
ensign ed with the imperial crown ; and more
1 In the valuable publica-
tions of the Spalding Club
many notices of the Comyns
will be found. One must take
these notices for what they are
worth ; it is probable that in
many cases they rest on nothing
better than local tradition and
the gossip of the illiterate. I am
glad to learn that a club which,
under the guidance of Innes,
Burton, .Robertson, and Stuart,
did so much excellent work, is
about to be revived.
134
The Feudal Society.
than once between Douglas and Stuart the Scot-
tish crown itself hung in the balance.
The Black Douglas was of Flemish origin ; but
from the twelfth century Douglasdale had be-
longed to the family, and they were pretty well
acclimatised before William the Hardy the
father of the good Sir James died in exile and
captivity at York. The exploits of the good Sir
James, from 1306, when he joined Bruce, to 1330,
when he fell fighting against the Moors, with
Bruce's heart at his saddle-bow, were transmitted
from bard to bard until the figure of the formid-
able Border chief was wellnigh lost in the mist
of fable. Than the wild midnight ride with
two hundred horsemen right through the English
camp at Stanhope Park to the tent of the Eng-
lish king, no more romantic and picturesque
adventure is to be found in the picturesque and
romantic annals of the house. The good Sir
James came in for a goodly share of the estates
forfeited by the Comyns and the other great
nobles who sided with Edward, in which he was
succeeded by his brother Archibald, the Eegent
of Scotland (who fell in the fatal hollow at Hali-
don), and who could show perhaps a better title,
for he had married Dornagilla, the daughter of
Marjory Baliol, and Black John of Badenoch. 1
1 The peerage- writers appear
to be rather uncertain, and far
from unanimous among them-
selves, as to the descent of the
The Feudal Society.
135
The fruit of this marriage was William, and
William was the first Earl Douglas, Earl of
Douglas, and also, through his wife, Earl of
Mar. One atrocious and unnatural crime, for
which no intelligible motive has been assigned
the slaughter of his godfather, the knight of
Liddesdale, a natural son of the good Sir James,
in Ettrick forest is associated with his name.
He drove the English garrison out of Teviotdale,
which they had held since the rout at Durham ;
on more than one occasion he crossed the Bor-
der and harried the northern counties as far as
York and Penrith. During the whole of his life
he appears indeed to have been deeply imbued
with the sentiment which Pitscottie attributed
to the cadet of the house who burnt Alnwick,
" not willing to be in an Englishman's debt for
an evil turn" On the death of David II. in
1371, the Earl, it is said, put forward a claim for
the crown ; but on his son marrying a daughter
Douglas estates on Sir James's
death. It is expected that
some of these knotty points
will be cleared up by Dr Wil-
liam Fraser in the Douglas
History, on which he is under-
stood to be engaged. [I have
not yet seen 'The Douglas
Book,' which has been privately
printed for the Earl of Home
since the text was written; but
I am informed that according
to Dr Fraser, Sir James was
succeeded by a son William,
who was succeeded by his uncle
Hugh, a canon of Glasgow
Cathedral, who in 1342 re-
signed the Douglas estates in
favour of his nephew William,
the son of Archibald, the Re-
gent.]
136 The Feudal Society.
of Eobert II. , the rivalry between Stuart and
Douglas was meantime stayed. His son James,
Earl of Douglas and Mar, was as stout an enemy
of the English as his father had been ; it is of Earl
James that Fordoun writes miles acerrimus et
Anglis semper infestissimus. He fell at Otter-
burn, the ghastly battle fought in the moon-
light, which verified the old prophecy that a
dead man should gain a field. He had a brother
who became Earl of Angus, and a sister, Isabel
of Mar, of whom much has been written ; x yet
on his death the earldom of Douglas passed (by
special entail, it is supposed) to Archibald, called
the Grim, another natural son of the good Sir
James. Archibald the Grim was a man of re-
markable capacity, " surpassing in civil wisdom,
prowess, and hardy enterprise," and well qualified
to extend by his sagacity, and to maintain by
his sword, the great position of the house. Over
that sword Froissart grew more than usually ani-
mated, " scarcely could another man raise it
from the ground, yet he wielded it with ease.
Such heavy blows he dealt, that, wherever it
reached, it overthrew. Before him the hardiest
of the English army shrank." The son of
Archibald the Grim was made Duke of Touraine
1 See an article by the present j wood's Magazine for March
writer on " Lord Crawford and 1882.
the House of Mar," in Black-
TJie Feudal Society. 137
and Lord of Longueville, and married Margaret,
the eldest daughter of the Scottish king. His
grandson, the fifth Earl, who died in 1438, left
behind him two sons, William and David,
" gotten upon Mauld Lindsay, dochter to the
Erl of Crawford," l and a daughter, the Fair Maid
of Gallowav, whose matrimonial misadventures
./ '
form a somewhat mysterious chapter in the his-
tory of the house. The boys were young and
rash, confident and inexperienced, and, spite of
ten thousand Border spears, no match for the
astute and crafty politician who, during the
minority of James II., virtually governed Scot-
land. The grim banquet in the castle,
" The black denner
Erl Douglas gat therein,"
was a bad jest that no necessity could justify ;
and though Lord Livingstone, who was in league
with Crichton, afterwards died on the scaffold,
beseeching his friends "to tak example by him
of the fragile facilities of the world," yet one of
the vilest and most wanton crimes in the history
of Scotland appears at the time to have passed
almost without notice. It was an age of civil
anarchy, "so many widowes, bairnes, and
infants seeking redress for their husbands, kin,
1 So Pitscottie ; their mo-
ther, according to Douglas, was
Lady Euphemia Graham.
138 The Feudal Society.
and friends that war cruelly slain by wicked
murders ; " and one atrocity more or less pos-
sibly did not count. On the death of this brave
and imprudent lad, the earldom passed to his
grand-uncle, a brother of the first Duke of
Touraine who is known in the history of the
house as James the Gross. Peaceable and in-
offensive, fat and unwieldy, the new peer was
indolently willing to " let byeganes be bye-
ganes." He had few of the great qualities of
his race ; and his contemporaries at least appear
to have been chiefly impressed by his enormous
size. " The 25th day of March 1443 "in the
words of an old chronicle, " Erl James Douglas
deit at the castle of Abercorn, to the token, they
said, that he had on him four stane of tallow
and mair" The sons of James the Gross,
William who was slain at Stirling by the king,
James who died'in extreme old age at Lindores,
were the last Earls of Douglas. The end
came in 1455, when, as Sir Walter Scott says,
"the sun of Douglas set in blood."
" They laid about them at their wills and died."
Some such epitaph can still be read on the
time-worn slabs in Douglasdale. The Douglas
was essentially a fighting house ; and though
some of the Earls were men of political capacity,
they were as a rule better fitted to wield the
sword than the pen. For three generations at
The Feudal Society. 139
least the power of this formidable family was
absolutely unbounded ; " nae man was safe in
the country unless he was either a Douglas or a
Douglas's man ; " their possessions, Touraine and
Longueville in France, Lauder, Ettrick, Selkirk,
Liddesdale, Eskdale, Annandale, Galloway, in
Scotland, were princely; when William, the
eighth Earl, defeated the English in the year
1448, he was Lord Lieutenant of the kingdom,
and two belted earls, his brothers, fought at his
side. For five years from 1450 to 1455 the
nation never knew from hour to hour whether
Stuart or Douglas would win the day. It was a
foul blow that was struck at Stirling ; but it
dissolved a confederacy that would probably have
proved fatal to the crown. Had the great Border
chiefs been thoroughly united, nothing indeed
could have saved the reigning family ; and it
was fortunate for the Stuarts that one powerful
branch of the clan held aloof from their kins-
men and remained fairly loyal. So invaluable
indeed was the aid that Angus rendered, that it
was said at the time that "the Eed Douglas had
put down the Black."
Upon the whole, the Red Douglas was not
inferior to the Black. They fought nearly as
well ; and more than one of them manifested
considerable management and address in the
conduct of civil affairs. They were closely con-
140 The Feudal Society.
nected with the royal family of Scotland :
George, the first Earl Angus, of the Douglas
blood, married Mary Stuart, daughter of Robert
III. ; James, the third Earl, married Johanna,
daughter of James I. ; Archibald, the sixth Earl,
married Margaret Tudor, the sister of Henry
VIII. and the widow of James IV. The Red
Douglas had been rewarded for his loyalty to
the throne by immense gifts of the lands which
had belonged to the older house ; and he ob-
tained, in addition, the castle of Tantallon, an
impregnable fortress which (with Dunbar) com-
manded the road to Berwick and the whole of
the eastern counties. Archibald, the fifth Earl,
was the famous " Bell-the-cat." He became the
mouthpiece of the illiterate and barbarous nobles,
who declined to be ruled by a king of pacific
temper and cultivated tastes, and who placed
James IV. on the throne from which they had
driven his father. The social and material pro-
gress of Scotland during the reign of James IV.
was marvellous ; since the golden age of Alex-
ander III. there had been no such period of
brilliant activity and rapid progress. The in-
fatuated folly of the vainglorious monarch, whose
chivalry was as meretricious as his penitence was
hollow, wrecked the fairest prospect of peace and
prosperity that Scotland had enjoyed for two
hundred years. Yet the king, who died at
The Feudal Society. 141
Flodden a man in every respect far inferior
to his father was deeply loved and sincerely
mourned. " Bell-the-cat " had been his favourite
minister ; it was not uncharacteristic of the gay
and petulant egotist, that the night before the
battle he should have wantonly insulted the a.ged
earl. Angus quitted the army in despair, but
he left his retainers behind him ; and next day
two of his sons and two hundred gentlemen of
his name fell on that disastrous field. The
Master of Angus was among the slain ; and his
son (on the death of "Bell-the-cat" in 1514)
succeeded to the earldom. The career of this
Archibald the sixth lord was singular and
checkered. He married Margaret Tudor; and
the politic and ambitious noble was thenceforth
the recognised leader of the English party in
Scotland. More than once he achieved unex-
pected success ; more than once he attained
supreme power. Both the Earl and his brother
Sir George were men of exceptional capacity;
yet they built upon the sand, and their most
skilful combinations sooner or later collapsed.
The deep and rooted aversion with which they
contrived to inspire the youthful king was the
cause of his inveterate hostility to their house ;
and when, on his death, they were permitted to
return to Scotland from their English exile, they
returned only to find that the " English lords "
142 The Feudal Society.
were regarded with sullen hostility by the people,
and that the unguarded promises they had made
to Henry could not be kept. They had meant
to be loyal to their engagements ; that, I think,
is clear from Sadler's narrative ; but the pressure
of events was too strong for them. Thus it came
about, that when open war was declared, Henry
found that the faction in Scotland on which he
had counted had failed him. He was very wroth,
and his bitterness against Angus was extreme.
Kalph Evers and Brian Laton overran the Merse
and the valley of the Teviot. The abbey of
Melrose was spoiled, and the sepulchre of the
Douglas was wrecked. On Ancrum Muir Angus
took his revenge. The Scottish charge was irre-
sistible, " the noise thereof," as Pitscottie
observes, with that touch of picturesqueness
which is the charm of his narrative, " the noise
thereof was as the roaring of the sea." Henry
swore and stormed, but the Douglas blood was
up. " Is our good brother offended that I
am a good Scotsman? Because I revenged on
Ealph Evers the abusing of the tombs of my
ancestors at Melrose will he for that have iny
life ? Little knows King Henry the skirts of
Kernetable. 1 I will keep myself there from the
1 In Calderwood's manuscript knows King Henry the . . . and
the passage runs : " Little the skirts of Kernetable."
The Feudal Society. 143
whole English army." Angus lived into another
generation ; Marie of Lorraine, indeed, had suc-
ceeded to the Regency before he died at his
castle of Tantalloii. The story of his last inter-
view with the Queen is possibly apocryphal ;
but it was obviously made to suit the man
his hardy, irreverent obstinacy, and bitter
tongue. The Queen was anxious to recover Tan-
tallon, which had been a royal fortress before
it was granted to the fourth Earl. Angus
listened to her in silence, turning occasionally
to the falcon, which he was engaged in feed-
ing. " Will the greedy gled never be full ? "
he muttered, as if he spoke to the bird on his
wrist ; and then, bursting out, he addressed
himself to the Queen, " The castle, madam,
is yours, and at your command ; but, by St
Bride of Douglas, I must be the captain ! "
After the death of Angus, the house of Douglas,
except in so far as it was represented by the
Earl of Morton, did not for many years take any
considerable part in public affairs. The great
feudal barons, with whom Maitland had to reckon
while he was in the service of Marie of Lorraine
and her daughter, were men whose ancestors had
been ennobled by the Stuarts, and who had suc-
ceeded by reason of marriage or forfeiture to the
vast possessions of the older aristocracy. The
great estates had been broken up ; but there
144 The Feudal Society.
were still a score of families whose supremacy
was undisputed.
The Earl of Arran, who had been made Duke
of Chatelherault when Mary was betrothed to
the Dauphin, was the foremost figure. At the
death of James V., only an infant a few days
old stood between him and the throne. The
fickleness of his convictions and the instability
of his character had impaired his reputation;
but his unique position, as head of the Hamil-
tons and heir -presumptive to the crown, still
gave him great social power, especially in the
west. He had large estates in the neighbour-
hood of the capital itself; strong political con-
nections in half-a-dozen counties ; while from
Cadzow to the Cock of Arran his will was law.
The only other political magnate in the west-
ern Lowlands was the Earl of Glencairn, a man
of a very different type. The Lollards of Kyle
had been the earliest reformers; Ayrshire was
the soil in which the reformed doctrines took
deepest root ; and Glencairn was a fit represen-
tative of the stiff and unflinching fanaticism of
the Congregation. In spite of the provocations
of Henry, he and his father had been loyal to
the English connection ; and when, with the
connivance of Elizabeth and her ministers, Marie
of Lorraine was deposed and the French alliance
renounced, Glencairn at least had no scruples to
The Feudal Society. 145
overcome. The Scottish nobles were the mer-
cenaries of the Eeformation ; but the "Western
Earl was always loyal to his convictions ; his
honesty was unstained, his integrity untar-
nished, by the baser and more worldly motives
which quickened the piety of Morton, Kuthven,
Eothes, and the rest.
Across the Clyde lay the country of the Camp-
bells, and the Earl of Argyll was the chief of the
Campbells. He had a vast following among the
Redshanks of the Atlantic seaboard, the hardy
mountaineers who dwelt along the picturesque
shores of the Western lochs and rivers. His
political force was at all times formidable, and
when in league with the Stuarts of Athol and
Lennox, or with the Grahams of Monteith and
Strathern, wellnigh irresistible ; but the Stuarts
loved the Campbells as little as they loved the
Hamiltons ; and many a score which one or
other would willingly have wiped out in blood,
many an old grudge, many an unstanched feud,
kept them apart. Argyll lived at Inverary on
Loch Fyne ; Menteith at Inchmahome ; Athol
at Blair of Athol, beyond Killiecrankie ; but
Lennox, who had married the Lady Margaret
Douglas, had been in exile for many years, and
his lands had been divided among the loyal
gentry of the adjoining counties. The Lady
Margaret was the lawful heir to the Earldom of
VOL. I. K
146 The Feudal Society.
Angus ; but in consequence probably of her hus-
band's proscription, her title had been set aside,
and her claim disallowed. So that a noble house,
closely allied on either side with the royal
family, and in whom the honours of Lennox
and Angus had lawfully vested, was in the mean-
time landless.
The Earl of Huntly, in the colloquial language
of the time, was " the goodman of the North."
Three great Northern nobles Erroll, Sutherland,
and Lovat were counted among his allies, if not
among his retainers ; and when he told Moray
that he could restore the mass in three coun-
ties, he did not probably overrate his influence.
The chief of the Gordon clan was the most opu-
lent peer in Scotland, and Strathbogie was the
palace of a prince. A man of vast experience
as well as of vast possessions, he might easily
have secured a great political position. But
though shrewd, subtle, and adroit, he had one
fatal weakness he was not trusted. The curse
of the double-minded man was upon him
Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. Neither
friend nor foe, neither Catholic Queen nor Pro-
testant reformer, could count upon his honour ;
and the incurable suspicion of dishonesty, of the
man faithless to his word, tainted his career.
He had been taken prisoner at Pinkie Cleuch,
The Feudal Society. 147
and by fair means or foul had afterwards escaped
from his English jailor. The story of his escape
has been told by an old historian ; and the graphic
force and picturesqueness of the narrative im-
press it indelibly on the memory :
" The Earle prepareth a supper for his keepers,
whereunto they were solemnly invited, and to
play at cards with him to pass away the tedious-
ness of the night. At length (as though he
had played enough at cards) he left off, bot ear-
nestly desired his keepers to play on ; during
which tyme, the earle going to the windowe and
looking out, did, by secret signe, (for he culd
not weill decerne anything, it wes so extrem
dark over all the element) easilie understood that
all things were readie for his journey. The earle
then doubtful (being some tyme in good hope,
and some tyme in fear) thought upon many
things, which he muttered to hiniselff, and, at
length, unadvisedlie, (as doubtfull men are wont
to do), burst out into these speeches ; ' A dark
night, a wearied knight, and a wilsome way,
God be the guyd !' His keepers heiring him
speiking to himself, asked him what these secret
speeches might signifie ? To whom the earle
fearing to be entrapped, answered, that these
words were used as a proverb among the Scots,
and first had their beginning by the old Earle of
148 The Feudal Society.
Morton uttering the same in the middle of the
night, when he lay a-dying." 1
Of the nobles who were strong in the Eastern
counties, Marischall, Ruthven, Crawfurd, Ogilvy,
Rothes, Morton, Bothwell, and Hume, might be
counted the most powerful. The Earl Maris-
chall had established himself upon the cliffs of
Dunnottar and the banks of the Ugie ; Ruthven
was provost of St Johnston (as Perth was then
called), and from the castle of Ruthven com-
manded the city and river which reminded the
Imperial soldier of Rome and the Tiber ; Lind-
say and Ogilvy were " great names " in Angus ;
the Leslies dwelt in Fife ; Hume, Hepburn,
Douglas of Dalkeith, in Lothian and the Merse.
Lord Home, to whom Fast Castle belonged, was
also Warden of the Eastern Marches, and chief of
a warlike clan. Of the great Border nobles who
held the road to England, Home, Maxwell, and
Herries were the foremost, Scott of Buccleuch
and the Kerrs of Cessford and Ferniehurst being
still reckoned among the untitled gentry.
Among the nobles whose lands lay in the im-
mediate vicinity of the capital, Lord Morton was
probably the most formidable. He was by birth
a member of the great Douglas family ; he had
married his cousin Lady Elizabeth Douglas, the
1 ' History of the House of Sutherland,' p. 130.
The Feudal Society. 149
heiress of Dalkeith ; and, through his influence
with Marie of Lorraine, his nephew and ward,
Archibald Douglas, an infant two years old, was
preferred in 1558 to the Earldom of Angus.
Morton was one of the latest recruits of the Con-
gregation. It was said indeed that gratitude to
the Eegent accounted for his tardiness : " having
obtained the Earldom of Angus for his nephew,
he is unwilling to break with the Dowager;" 1
but the reason which he assigned, in a character-
istic letter to Cecil, was probably the true one :
"I doubt not but your Lordship has suffici-
ently understood by the Laird of Lethington's
report, as one that was privy to my determin-
ation, what mind I have borne to the common
cause since the first enterprising thereof; as also
what moved me to stay from declaring myself,
before the entry of the Queen's Majesty's army ;
And believe you have found the occasion just as
the case stood ; for the French being then
masters of the field where my lands lie, I might
well have given up my men as a prey to their
fury, but would not have advanced the cause.
Since you entered at the beginning, although
I was well purposed to join with the rest of the
noblemen, yet seeing the matter come in consid-
eration, I stayed until the treaty was dissolved ;
1 Sadler, 6th Nov. 1559.
150 The Feudal Society.
and then before the assault when power was re-
quired, I joined my force with the rest and was
present with them. Now, albeit nothing was
craved at the Queen's Majesty, nor promised to
her Highness in my name, yet I would her Ma-
jesty had that opinion of me that no man of my
nation does either more esteem her Highness's
liberal support granted to this afflicted realm for
the present, nor yet shall be more willing to ac-
knowledge that benefit by most humble service,
than I shall ever be at the uttermost of my
power, which I propose to utter by effect, when
occasion shall serve. In the meantime, for the
small acquaintance I had with you of old, I will
be bold to require of you, that by your mean,
her Majesty may understand my affection to do
her service. Thus after my most hearty com-
mendations, I wish farewell to you." 1
He had waited, in short, to see which side
would w r in ; when the entrance of an English
army made the issue a certainty, he went over
to the Congregation. From that time onward,
however, though caring nothing for religion or
its restraints, and greedy, rapacious, and dissolute
beyond belief, it must be admitted that his con-
stancy to the English alliance never wavered,
an unaccountable fidelity, which the receipt of a
1 24th May 1560. From the camp before Leith.
The Feudal Society. 151
considerable pension from Queen Elizabeth does
not entirely explain. The deep and enigmatical
character of James Douglas perplexed his con-
temporaries, and Sadler's judgment was sadly
at fault when he characterised a man of pro-
found craft and daring tenacity as " simple and
fearful." x
These were the great governing families of
Scotland; and among them the name of the
" Prior of St Andrews " is not included. The
natural son of James the Fifth became afterwards
the celebrated Earl of Moray; but as yet the
character and capacity of the future regent were
known only to his intimates. Among these it
is probable that Lethington might be counted ;
so much, if I am not mistaken, may be inferred
from the allusions of their contemporaries. " The
Lord James" had brothers and sisters Lord
Robert Stuart, Lord John Stuart, the Countess
of Argyll, were among the number but though
their names occasionally occur in the records of
the time, none of them attained any special
distinction. If therefore we add to the list of
the nobles which I have made, the names of one
or two of the lesser lords Erskine, Fleming,
Seton, Livingstone we shall have brought
into one group nearly all the secular nobles
1 Sadler, 6th Nov. 1559.
152
The Feudal Society.
whose birth and station fitted them to partici-
pate, on one side or other, in the political and
religious revolution that was at hand.
A feudal baron had many local duties to per-
form, and he lived much among his own people ;
but he was bound to attend the sittings of the
Parliament, which were now commonly held in
the capital. 1 The Scottish Parliament contained
representatives of every estate the greater and
lesser barons, the spirituality, the commonality
who met together in a single chamber; yet
it was in the Parliament House that the king's
o
will was most authoritatively expressed, and
most readily obeyed. The feudal lord was
supreme at home ; and it was to him especi-
ally if he lived in the outlying counties where
the law was a dead letter a matter of little
practical concern what acts the Parliament
might sanction, or what duties it might en-
join. There was no power in the land capable
1 Many of the lords spirit-
ual as well as temporal began
about this time to reside for a
part of the year in the capital
a proof of the growing auth-
ority of the centralised execu-
tive ; and some of the houses
which they built for their own
use were almost as strong and
formidable as their castles in
the country. All over Europe
the town-houses of the great
nobles were buildings which,
when the gates were once barred,
could stand a siege, although,
of course, the prison-like pal-
aces of the Eoman and Floren-
tine nobility bore little resem-
blance otherwise to the feudal
mansions of Edinburgh or
York.
The Feudal Society. 153
of enforcing an obnoxious statute upon a
Campbell, a Hamilton, or a Douglas. The Lords
of the Articles a Committee of Parliament
virtually selected by the Crown prepared the
bills that were to be laid before the House,
and the estates converted them into " Scots'
Acts" with loyal alacrity. The executive
authority of the state, moreover, was largely
exercised by the Privy Council, and the Privy
Council was independent of the Parliament ; it
sat in the royal palace, and its members were
selected by the sovereign. The forms of the
Scottish Government were strictly "constitu-
tional " ; but there can be little doubt that,
had a small standing army existed, a strong-
willed ruler, by patience and address, might
gradually have monopolised all the functions,
executive and legislative, of the state, and ex-
ercised an authority little short of despotic. I
am disposed to believe that these peculiarities
of Scottish administration had not escaped the
notice of William Maitland, and that a policy,
which sought to increase the prerogatives of
the sovereign by restricting the privileges of
the nobles, would have had his approval. It
is curious, at least, that, during the period when
he was most trusted by Mary Stuart, within
indeed two years of her return, the two greatest
nobles in Scotland Huntly and "the Duke"
154 The Feudal Society.
should have been bitterly, persistently, and
successfully assailed.
The high offices of state, transmitting by a sort
of hereditary title from father to son, were held
by the great nobles ; but there were a number of
posts, connected more particularly with the ad-
ministration of justice in the capital, which were
bestowed indifferently upon the more capable
of the clergy and the lesser gentry. The seats
upon the bench were filled by an equal number
of lay and clerical members ; the functionaries
attached to the civil and consistorial tribunals
belonged to the legal order which the institu-
tion of a Supreme Court had called into exist-
ence ; the Advocate, the Justice-Clerk, the Treas-
urer, the Secretary, were as a rule personally
attached to the sovereign. At the time when
young Lethington first went to Edinburgh, a
considerable share of the real government of
the nation was in the hands of the " officials " ;
and it was by virtue of holding one or other of
these offices (and thus only indeed) that an
ambitious politician like Maitland, not belong-
ing to the great governing families, could look
for early advancement.
CHAPTER FOUR.
POLITICS AND RELIGION.
T7ROM the brief survey of Scottish literature
* which I have attempted to give in a
previous chapter, it sufficiently appeared that
long before William Maitland was born, the
great and independent tribes which occupied
the country to the north of the river Tweed
had been brought into organic union. We are
apt to misjudge and misunderstand the forces
that form a nation. There is nothing more
certain, however, than the proposition which
most students of history are now prepared to
accept, that a community does not rise to any
true corporate life until, so to speak, it has been
" baptised in fire." The iron must be red-hot
before it will fuse ; and a severe education, a
hard experience, is needed to weld a nation
together. By common sufferings and by com-
mon triumphs the Scots had bought the right
to be a people. Their apprenticeship had been
156 Politics and Religion.
served in a rough school; but it had taught
them the lesson which it was designed to teach.
Cohesion had been given to the national life.
A true identity had been established. Patriot-
ism had become a virtue. A vivid sense of
their essential unity pervaded the whole society.
They were " Scots," high and low, rich and
poor, peer and peasant, members of the same
family. The feeling had grown stronger and
deeper during centuries of strenuous conflict
with a foe whose resources were vastly superior.
The constant strain had never been relaxed ; no
breathing-space in which to recruit their strength
had been given them ; year after year the miser-
able and exhausting conflict had been renewed.
Up to the thirteenth century the conduct
of the English kings was fairly justifiable. The
advantages of union to either people could not
be overrated. It was obviously a matter of the
first importance that the whole island, from
John o' Groat's to the Land's End, should be
under one ruler. The existence of an alien and
hostile people across the Border was a constant
menace ; and the English were naturally in-
clined to maintain, by fair argument or foul,
that neither in law nor in fact did such a people
exist. But the War of Independence should
have opened their eyes. Edward and his suc-
cessors continued to insist on a technical plea ;
Politics and Religion. 157
they would not recognise the unquestionable
fact that, whatever might have been the rights
and wrongs of the past, Scotland was now a
separate kingdom, and the Scots a distinct
people. Whoever has read the letter which
the Scottish nobles addressed to the Pope in
1317, must acknowledge that the English pre-
tensions had ceased to be tenable, and, in ceas-
ing to be tenable, had become criminal and
foolish. That letter written in uncouth monk-
ish Latin, which is yet unable to chill the fire
and fervour of its patriotism establishes beyond
the shadow of doubt that, before the close of
the thirteenth century, Scottish nationality was
an accomplished fact : " From these evils in-
numerable, by the help of Him who, after
wounding, heals and restores to health, we were
freed by our most gallant Prince, King, and
Lord, our Lord Robert, who, to rescue his people
and heritage from the hands of enemies, like a
later Macabeus or Joshua, endured toil and
weariness, hunger and danger, with cheerful
mind ; to whom (as to him by whom deliver-
ance has been wrought for our people) we, for
the defence of our liberty, are bound, both by
right and by his deserts, and are determined
in all things to adhere ; but if he were to desist
from what he has begun, wishing to subject
us and our kingdom to the King of England
158
Politics and Religion.
and the English, we would immediately expel
him as an enemy, and the subverter of his own
rights and ours, and make another king who
should be able to defend us. For so long as a
hundred remain alive, we never will, in any
degree, be subject to the dominion of the Eng-
lish. Since not for glory, riches, or honour, we
fight, but for liberty only, which no good man
loses but with his life." *
The English kings never renounced the claim.
It was seriously insisted on by Henry VIII. after
the rout at Sol way Moss ; it was a weapon that
Cecil kept in reserve, and which he liked to play
with (if only in the closet) when occasion served.
For the Iliad of woes of which it was the origin
the English kings are solely responsible. Had
they been content to waive a claim which they
could not enforce, the bitter hostility between
the " auld enemies " would have gradually abated.
The memory of old wrongs could not have kept
asunder those whom nature had joined, and three
centuries of anarchy would have been wiped out
as with a sponge. Scottish patriotism, no doubt,
was fanned into a fiercer flame ; but in all other
respects the fruit was evil, apples of Sodom,
grapes of Gomorrah. The character of the na-
1 Non enim propter gloriam modo quam Nemo bonus nisi
diucias aut honores pugnamus, simul cum vita amittit.
sed propter libertatem solum-
Politics and Religion. 159
tion deteriorated. It may be said without exag-
geration that, before the struggle had ended, the
only organised life left in Scotland was the in-
tense patriotic feeling. All the other ligaments
that unite society were broken. The land was
turned into a cock-pit, and the nation into an
army, which was decimated as systematically as
soldiers on active service are decimated. Hardly
a man died in his bed. The great nobles, if they
were not executed on the scaffold, fell on the
battlefield. One generation followed another,
Stuart, Douglas, Hamilton, Home, Scott, dying
in turn a violent death. It is a chronicle of
blood, two hundred years of unprofitable and
wicked slaughter. The monotony of the story
indeed is as wearisome as its vileness. Patriot-
ism itself cannot touch with a semblance of
nobleness the raids of Border ruffians ; and the
chivalry of Otterburn is but a fiction of the poet.
Like a pack of the wild animals that were still
found in their forests, the " gaunt and hungry
nobles" of Scotland hung upon the flanks of
their richer neighbours, turning fiercely at in-
tervals to worry one another. The memorable
words of Hobbes may be applied indeed with
eminent fitness to the Scottish anarchy of which
Edward was the author : " In such condition
there is no place for industry, because the fruit
thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture
160 Politics and Religion.
of the earth ; no navigation, nor use of the com-
modities that may be imported by sea ; no com-
modious building ; no account of time ; no arts ;
no letters ; no society ; and, which is worst of
all, continual fear and danger of violent death ;
and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short." l
When James the Fourth was on the throne, a
truce was concluded which lasted for several
years. The progress in art and letters, in agri-
culture and commerce, during this comparatively
brief pause, was astonishing. But for the vain-
glorious folly of the King, it might have been
the beginning of the end. The Stuarts, from
first to last, were an unfortunate .in some
respects an unaccountably unfortunate race.
Brave, frank, witty, versatile, energetic, they
were ready, with a sort of plebeian audacity, to
welcome good or evil fortune. They had little
pride of station, they were men and women
who laughed with the keenest zest over the
humours of the market-place, and who did not
care to don the mask which custom prescribes
when a king mixes with the crowd. Under
immense difficulties in a light, inconsequent,
irrelevant style they did a good deal for Scot-
land. For a few years in the maturity of his
1 Leviathan, chap. xiii.
Politics and Religion. 161
powers, each of the Jameses had been King and
Euler : but they were shortlived ; and during a
succession of protracted minorities the anarchical
aristocracy recovered the power of which it had
been temporarily shorn. 1 This was an accident ;
but the Stuart character was itself at fault.
Somewhere in the metal there was a flaw. In-
firm of temper, they could not bear a protracted
strain ; impatient of opposition, they could not
play a waiting game. To form a far-reaching
design, to mature it in silence, and to cling to it
to the end, was a line of policy which a Stuart
might approve in his heart, but which he could
not follow. They were at once obstinate and
facile, never more so than when James, in spite
of warning and portent, cast away his crown
upon the field of Flodden.
Flodden was fought in 1513, and during the
forty intervening years little had been done by
English statesmen to soothe the jealous suscepti-
bilities of the northern people, or to smooth the
way to union. The old enemies continued to
hate each other with the old cordiality. But
the Scots now stood mainly on the defensive,
the lesson which they had been taught at Flod-
1 Kobert Birrel, an Edinburgh
burgess, begins his " Diarey "
with these words, "There hes
been in this kingdom of Scot-
VOL. I.
land ane hundred and fyve
kings, of whilk there wes slaine
fyftie-sex."
162 Politics and Religion.
den not having been forgotten. Once on the
death of James the Fifth it appeared possible
that a lasting peace might be cemented ; but the
chance passed away, and the "trajedies" that
followed drove the nation wild. The customary
atrocities were renewed with fresh vigour. No
English king, since Edward, had been hated as
O O' '
Henry came to be hated.
It has been urged, indeed, that Henry's
" rough wooing " was justified by the mendacity
and treachery of the Scots. An attentive study
of Sadler's despatches to the English court, and
other contemporary records, tends, I think, to
qualify this judgment.
Sadler had been sent to bring about the mar-
riage between the infant Mary and the youthful
Edward, which was designed to secure a definite
and lasting union. It was the early spring of
1543 ; James the Fifth had died of a broken
heart at Falkland, the favourite hunting-seat
of royalty, where was that " broad-horned species
of stags" which Buchanan describes, on the
14th of the previous December; the Douglases,
Angus and his brother Sir George, had returned
from their long exile, along with the Lords who
had been taken at Solway Moss ; the widowed
Queen with her infant daughter was at Linlith-
gow ; the great Cardinal, who had been foiled
in his attempt to secure the office which James
Politics and Religion. 163
had probably intended that he should fill, was
under a cloud ; and Arran the weak and facile
Hamilton, " altered by every man's flattery and
fair speech" was Governor of the kingdom.
At the moment the balance inclined to England ;
Sadler was sanguine ; but it soon became clear
that the conditions formulated by Henry pro-
ceeding upon the implied claim of superiority
which the Scots had persistently and obstinately
denied were entirely inadmissible, and would
never be conceded by the people.
In the garden at Holyrood Sadler found the
Governor, who, after a brief interview, bade Sir
George Douglas convey him to his lodging. Sir
George one of the "English pensioners," as
Bothwell offensively called them was friendly,
but frank. He declared that the Estates would
not consent to send the infant Mary to England,
and he pled for patient delay and gentle dealing.
" If there be any motion now to take the Gover-
nor from his state, and to bring the government
of this realm to the King of England, I assure
you it is impossible to be done at this time.
For," he continued, "there is not so little a
boy but he will hurl stones against it, and the
wives will handle their distaffs, and the com-
mons universally will rather die in it, yea,
and many noblemen and all the clergy be fully
against it." Violent measures would drive the
164 Politics and Religion.
Scots into the arms of France; whereas with
fair means the marriage might be ultimately
brought about.
That was Sir George's opinion, and Angus was
much influenced by Sir George, " we shall ad-
vise with our brother," being his usual answer.
A few days afterwards Angus and Glencairn ex-
cused themselves for not pressing Henry's claim
that the government should be entrusted to him
(which when in England they had admittedly
undertaken to promote), on the ground that,
before they arrived, a Eegent had been ap-
pointed by the Estates. " There was no doubt,
however, but that your Majesty once having the
interest in the young queen, all the rest of your
desires would follow." Glencairn sent a letter
to the same effect, which, " being written with
his own hand, and therefore not legible," Sadler
was forced to copy.
The negotiations dragged on through the
summer, Sadler using all his influence with
Henry to induce him to moderate his demands.
"All your Majesty's purposes may be wrought
in time without rigour" if he would only be
patient; and Lord Maxwell whose daughter
Angus had married was equally urgent, "fair
and gentle means are the best and most godly
way." " The Lords will not consent to have an
English Council in Scotland ; but if your Ma-
Politics and Religion. 165
jesty will somewhat relent in your demands, all
may yet be well."
Henry's position in the negotiations was thus
perfectly plain. Mary, now an infant a few
months old, was to be taken to England, where
she was to remain in the custody of the King
till the marriage could be solemnised. In the
mean time the government of the country was
to be entrusted to Henry; an English council
was to be installed at Holyrood ; English soldiers
were to garrison the castle. Angus must indeed
have forgotten the history of his house, if he
fancied for a moment that such an abject capitu-
lation would be ratified by his countrymen.
As time passed on the clouds gathered.
Arran had been well affected to the English
Protestants ; he had issued a proclamation on
19th March, making it lawful to read the Bible
in the mother -tongue ; he had made Henry
Balnaves his secretary ("I have had mickle
cumber among the kirkmen for his sake," he
told the ambassador) ; he had hated the Car-
dinal, and would have been well pleased if the
Douglas plot to carry him to Tantallon had
succeeded. When Sadler suggested that the
great churchman should be kidnapped and sent
to England, the Governor was immensely tickled
by the proposal. " Hereat he laughed, and said,
' The Cardinal had lever go into hell ! ' " But
166 Politics and Religion.
Arran, who was, as Marie of Lorraine truly
said, " the most inconstant man in the world,
for whatsoever he determineth to-day he
changeth to-morrow," began to waver. His
tone changed. He continued to protest his
attachment to Henry, " swearing many great
oaths as wounds and sides (as indeed he is a
good swearer) " ; and he even persuaded the
Estates to ratify an emasculated treaty, " at
the high mass, solemnly sung with shalms and
sackbuts in the abbey church of the Holyrood
House." But the tide was too strong for him.
The Cardinal had escaped to St Andrews.
"Then he told me, swearing a great oath, that
the Cardinal's money had corrupted Lord Seton."
Civil war seemed imminent, there will be a
wild time, said Angus, " every man preparing
jacks and spears." But it soon became clear
that, though some of the Lords were in Henry's
pay, the Commons and the kirkmen, as well as a
great party of the nobles, went with the Car-
dinal. The clergy had refused to perform the
offices of the church so long as Beaton was in
prison; and if a war broke out, "they will
give their own and the church plate, chalices,
crosses, censers." The common people, more-
over, began to murmur against Arran as a
heretic and an Englishman who had sold the
realm to Henry. Angus and the Border Lords
Politics and Religion. 167
were even more unpopular. "They were com-
monly hated here for your Majesty's sake, and
such ballads and songs made of them that they
have been corrupted by the English angels."
Sadler clearly perceived the gathering of the
storm. The struggle between " the heretics and
the English Lords " on the one side, and " the
scribes and pharisees " on the other, would be
decided by " the neutrals," who were already
going over to the stronger faction ; and the
Governor was going with them. Then the
storm burst. " The estate of things here is so
perplexed, and such malicious and despiteful
people, I think, live not in this world as is the
common people of this realm, specially towards
Englishmen." " I think never man had to do
with such people." Henry in his anger impru-
dently confiscated the Scottish ships in English
ports, and would only restore them on conditions
which, " making them traitors to their own
country," the Scots indignantly rejected. For
some days the ambassador was not safe ; he had
been in great danger, he wrote to Henry; the
Douglases were unable to protect him, their
friends forsaking them because they were " Eng-
lish," and even their own servants "not to be
trusted in such a quarrel." At last he was
carried secretly to Tantallon, from whence he
crossed the Border.
168 Politics and Religion.
Henry's passion boiled over. He held that the
Cardinal had foiled him ; and it was against the
Cardinal that he was most bitter. " It may like
your lordship to understand," Secretary Paget
wrote to Hertford, who was already March 1 1 ,
1543 on his way to Scotland, "the King's
Majesty's opinion is that it shall be well done
for such as make raids into Scotland to have
written upon the church -door, or some other
notable place within all such towns or states,
these or such other like words : ' You may
thank your Cardinal for this; for if he had not
been you might have been in quiet and rest ; for
the contrary whereof he hath travelled as much
as can be to bring you to sorrow and trouble.' '
While it is quite true, therefore, that the
Cardinal and the Queen-mother were all along
secretly opposed to the English marriage (which
indeed was not cordially accepted by any power-
ful party in Scotland), it cannot be denied that
Henry's inordinate pretensions gave his enemies
the pretext they desired, and that his impolitic
violence fanned the smouldering flame into a
fierce conflagration. The cruelties that were
perpetrated by the English captains, the ruth
and ruin that followed the track of their armies,
had never been excelled in any of the raids that
had so often desolated the Border homesteads.
The Scots were exasperated beyond measure.
Politics and Religion.
169
Peaceful and orderly progress was paralysed.
Union was delayed for half a century. The bar-
est record of these atrocities suffices to show that
the statesman who, in the middle of the sixteenth
century, could look forward with confidence to
a peaceful union of the crowns, must have been
immensely sagacious or singularly sanguine. 1
The burning of the capital was the first argu-
ment that Henry used. There was no need for
a declaration of war. No fastidious scruples re-
quired to be consulted. On a fine Sunday in
the beginning of May, the citizens saw from
the Castle-hill and other " eminent places " that
the Firth was dotted over with the white sails
of the English ships. There was no fear of
invasion, however, and the Governor and the
Cardinal went quietly to bed. " Upon Wednes-
1 Powerful and bitter expres-
sion is given to these senti-
ments in the 'Complaynt of
Scotland,' which was written
about 1548. For twelve hun-
dred years, we are assured, the
English have been the "auld
mortal enemies" of the Scot.
The Scottish lords who sell
themselves for English gold are
sternly denounced, and even
the clergy are exhorted to take
the field against the cruel in-
vasion of that "false seed,"
that " unbelieving generation,"
led by a man bloodier than
Nero or Caligula. The writer,
whoever he may have been,
appeals to universal Christen-
dom to denounce as " God's
rebels" the people who, by
their infidelity and sacrilege,
their tyranny, cruelty, and
violent usurpation of other
princes' dominions, without
title or provocation, have shown
that they are rather "Sara-
cens " than citizens of the Chris-
tian commonwealth.
170 Politics and Religion.
day" May 7, 1544 "the English marched
towards Edinburgh ; first spoiled and then burnt
the toun and the palace of Holyrood hous.
There were few touns and villages within seven
mile of Edinburgh which were not spoiled and
burnt. Thereafter they spoiled and burnt Leith.
When they had consumed both the touns, they
loaded the ships with the spoile." This is the
Scottish account of the exploit ; an English-
man who accompanied the expedition contri-
butes some characteristic touches : " Finally it
was determined by the said Lord Lieutenant
utterly to ruinate the toun with fire. We con-
tinued burning all that day, and the two days
next ensuing continually, so that neither within
the walls nor in the suburbs was left any one
house unbrent. Also we burnt the Abbey called
Holy Eodehouse, and the palace adjoining to
the same. In the mean time, there came unto
us four thousand of our light horsemen, who
did such exploits in riding and devastating the
country, that within seven miles every way of
Edinburgh they left neither peel, village, nor
house, nor stacks of corn standing unburnt.
After these exploits done at Edinburgh, and all
the country thereabouts devastated, the king's
lieutenant, thinking the Scots not to be con-
dignly punished, determined not to return with-
out doing them more displeasure. ... To
Politics and Religion. 171
give them better occasion to show themselves
in the field against us, we left neither peel,
village, town, nor house, in our way homewards,
unburnt. . . . The same day we burnt a fair
toun called Haddington, with a great nunnery
and a house of Friars. That night they looked
for us to have burnt the town of Dunbar, which
we deferred till the morning, when those within
it were newly gone to their beds ; and in their
first sleeps, closed in with fire, men, women, and
children were suffocated and burnt." 1 This
was a fair beginning; but "as God would be
known to favour our master's cause " it was not
enough, or nearly enough. A " bloody ledger "
exists, wherein the " exploits done upon the
Scots " between July and November of the same
year are duly entered. From this it appears
that 192 towns, towers, and parish churches had
been destroyed ; 403 Scots had been killed, and
816 taken prisoner; while 10,380 cattle, 12,492
sheep, 1296 nags and geldings, had been cap-
tured and carried off. Next year the wretched
Borderers were again scourged. Between the
8th and the 23d of September, 7 monasteries,
16 castles, 5 market - towns, 243 villages, 13
mills, 3 hospitals, were utterly wrecked "cast
1 The Late Expedition in Scotland, the yere of our Lorde
God, 1544.
172 Politics and Religion.
down, burnt, and rased " to slake Henry's
thirst for revenge. The Abbeys of Kelso, Dry-
burgh, Melrose, Jedworth, Eccles, were rased
and cast down the towns were burnt. The
King's instructions were religiously respected ;
and even after his death, the carnage went on
with unabated zest and spirit. Pinkie Cleuch was
fought on the "Black Saturday" of September
1547. The injury inflicted on Scotland during
these eight or nine years was immense ; but
Henry profited not at all. Before the war was
finished Mary had been betrothed to the Dau-
phin, and the English garrisons had been driven
across the Tweed.
These were the scenes which Maitland wit-
nessed as a lad ; his youth was passed among
people whose fathers and brothers had been
slaughtered, whose homesteads had been gutted,
by " the auld enemy." Maitland did not wear
his heart on his sleeve : he delighted in the
" mockage " which concealed his serious convic-
tions ; he had an immense contempt for exag-
gerated sentiment and fanatical excess. Yet no
truer patriot was then living, no Scotsman who
was prouder of Scotland. Not, if he could help it,
should the long heroic struggle for freedom, for
independence, prove fruitless at the last. On the
other hand, he saw with eminent directness, with
an almost poetic simplicity of insight, of divina-
Politics and Religion. 173
tion, that a policy of separation was becoming
more hopeless, more impossible, every day.
Irresistible forces were drawing the nations to-
gether. The stars in their courses were fighting
for union. This was the political puzzle which
English and Scottish statesmen were set to solve.
How and on what terms could the old enemies
be united ? If the national jealousies were to be
permanently allayed, if the old sores were to be
healed, there must be no arrogant assumptions
on the one side, no sense of humiliation on the
other. The problem would probably have proved
insoluble had it been left to work itself out
through political forces alone. But in the six-
teenth century the bands of patriotism were
loosed by a stronger passion. In the reviving
warmth of the spiritual life the old animosities
died out, the ancient grudges were forgotten.
Religion, for once, brought peace not a sword.
To determine whether the policy of Maitland
or the policy of Knox was most in harmony
with the principles of the Reformers, it will be
necessary hereafter to treat very fully of the
circumstances attending the Reformation of re-
ligion in Scotland. In the mean time, I need
only bring together in the briefest possible sur-
vey the events which led up to the final rupture
between the Queen and the Catholic Church on
the one hand, and the Lords of the Congregation
174 Politics and Religion.
on the other. The Keformation as a whole the
Reformation as the wave of change that in the
sixteenth century swept across Catholic Europe
lies outside the scope of this survey, either now
or later ; yet it is true, I may say in passing,
that the ideas and feelings which the Reforma-
tion expressed were everywhere substantially
the same. The Reformation, when resolved into
its simplest elements, was a protest against the
practice, as well as against the doctrine, of the
papacy. The reviving spiritual life was alienated
by the doctrinal materialism of Rome ; the re-
viving moral life was shocked by its cynical
licentiousness. In Germany the insurrection
may be said to have been in great measure the
fruit of a profound spiritual excitement ; in Eng-
land it was mainly due to the political indigna-
tion which the corruptions of the monastic orders
had roused ; in Scotland both forces worked with
nearly equal energy. But these subjective na-
tional peculiarities did not affect the vital unity
of the movement. To throw the imagination
back into that troubled age ; to watch the mani-
festations of the strange new spirit which was
moving with an irresistible impulse all the nor-
thern peoples, from the rude Prussian amber-
fisher on the Baltic Sea to the polished courtiers
and sharp logicians of Paris, Rotterdam, and
Geneva ; to discriminate between the idioms
Politics and Religion. 175
which national habit, idiosyncrasy, and tempera-
ment impressed upon it ; to appreciate the social
changes in the life of Europe which it effected ;
to track its progress, in one nation dying out
after a brief volcanic life ; in another quenched
in martyr blood ; in another clinging to the cliffs
and keeping a pure flame alight in rough
mountain hearts ; in another wisely assimilated
by prince and prelate, permitted to work out its
mission unmolested, and to mould through calm
and storm the policy of cabinets and the history
of an empire, this is a task which has never
yet, in our own country at least, been adequately
discharged, a labour, indeed, of which few are
capable. We have " bits," as an artist would
say, of rare excellence ; but the finished picture
has not yet been painted. The features of the
representative leaders, the genial disposition
and broad sympathies of Luther, his manliness,
his simple affectionateness, the bluntness and
heartiness of his temper, the rude strength and
hilarious riot of his humour ; the wrapt, austere,
and passionless Calvin, his logical directness and
naked simplicity of intellect, his legislative capa-
city, and the great practical and administrative
genius which cast the stormy forces of the Kev-
olution into a compact and symmetrical mould ;
the caustic irony and benevolent piety of Lati-
mer; the humour, the narrowness, the bitter-
176 Politics and Religion.
ness, and the harsh sense of Knox, have been
portrayed with admirable fairness by one to
whom many of the best and most attractive
traits of the Eeformers had been transmitted
the lamented Principal of the University of St
Andrews ; and if another writer, of kindred yet
contrasted gifts, had completed that history of
the empire under Charles the Fifth which he had
begun, but from which he was unhappily diverted
by other duties, the main incidents of a most
momentous movement would have been brought
visibly before us, marshalled in brilliant proces-
sion by the latest master of English prose.
It is with the city of St Andrews that the
ecclesiastical history of Scotland, prior to the
Reformation, is most intimately associated.
What St Andrews was when Marie of Lorraine
landed there in 1537, or what it was a few years
later, when William Maitland crossed the Firth
to become a scholar in the " humanities " so
wide and sweeping are the changes it has under-
gone we can with difficulty conjecture. Even
within the memory of men now living it has
altered much. St Andrews, in the days of their
boyhood, was a truly academic city a dark,
sombre, ruinous, mildewed, ill -lighted, badly-
paved, old - fashioned, old - mannered, secluded
place. Then came the era of the utilitarian re-
formers, who destroyed its scholastic repose, and
Politics and Religion. 177
wiped away its classic dust. But in that earlier
and darker age to which memory not unwillingly
returns, a few noble fragments of ancient ruin
which had resisted the fury of the Knoxian mob,
the massive walls of a feudal castle, the great
tower of St Eule, the lovely windows and arches
of the Cathedral, rose above an old-fashioned
street, not inconveniently crowded with old-
fashioned houses, in which old-fashioned pro-
fessors and old-fashioned ladies looked after
keen-eyed, threadbare students, who here, in red
and ragged gowns, cultivated the Muses, like
the early Edinburgh Reviewers, upon a little
oatmeal. Very kindly and homely was the life
they led, a life through which the shrill sea-
wind blew healthfully, and to which the daily
round of " golf" on the Links, and the evening
rubber of long whist in the parlour, added the
keen zest of physical and intellectual excitement.
Death has swept them all clean away, wonder-
ful old Scotch ladies, wonderful old Scotch pro-
fessors ; and new streets, new terraces, new men,
new manners, have transformed the modern city
during the summer months at least into a
fashionable loitering -place for the lawyers of
Edinburgh and the traders of Dundee. But
go to it during winter or early spring before
the college session is over, before the students
in their red gowns have deserted the streets,
VOL. I. M
178 Politics and Religion.
before the sociable academic society has taken
flight, before the east wind has abated, before
the hoarse complaints of a sea often vexed by
storm are silenced, before the snow has melted
away from the distant Angus range, and we
may even to-day understand the bleak charm
that thirty or forty or fifty years ago endeared
this sea-girt seat of early learning and piety
this severe mother of the intellectual Graces,
Mater sceva Cupidinum to the most thought-
less of her sons.
The decline of St Andrews began with the
Eeformation : less than a hundred years there-
after we find the magistrates complaining of its
decaying trade, its diminished shipping, its de-
serted streets, its impoverished citizens. It had
been associated for centuries with the elaborate
ritual and splendid pageantries of the Catholic
Church ; when the Church fell, it dragged the
city along with it. Some slight and imperfect
notion of the vicissitudes it has experienced may
be obtained by whoever visits its storm-beaten
pier. When he finds only a small coaster or two
moored to the quay, and half-a-dozen deep-sea
fishing -boats drawn up on the beach, he will
be inclined to question the statistics of the
sixteenth -century historian, who informs him
that during the great annual fair the Senzie
Fair held in the grounds of the Priory during
Politics and Religion. 179
April three hundred vessels from France, Flan-
ders, and the Baltic entered its famous port.
St Andrews was probably at its best about the
middle of the sixteenth century. This venerable
temple of the Christian faith had not been built
in a day. It was as old as nay, older than
the Scottish monarchy. The promontory of
Muckross is described in our earliest annals as
one of the favourite haunts of the wild boar.
Here, in " old unhappy far-off times," not many
years after the death of our Lord, came a great
Christian missionary, bearing with him (rever-
ently, in a silver casket) " three of the fingers
and three of the toes " of a yet greater apostle.
Here he founded a Christian church, and con-
verted to the true faith "that bloody, savage,
and barbarous people, the Fights." Here a long
line of saints and bishops, from Adrian to Arthur
Eoss, lived and died, and were buried in sump-
tuous tombs which those humble shepherds took
care to provide for themselves. Here, on a
barren promontory, rose an exquisite shrine (two
hundred years they took to build it), whose bur-
nished copper roof was seen miles off by the
hardy mariners of France and Flanders who
ploughed the northern seas. Here grey friars
and black friars grew fat and sleek upon the
prudent piety of Scottish kings ; here high-bred
and high-born legates and cardinals dispensed a
Politics and Religion.
princely hospitality; here queens feasted, and
martyrs suffered, and the fingers and toes of the
Saint continued to work miraculous cures till a
comparatively recent period.
The Priory had been built when Alexander III.
was king. The Cathedral begun by Arnold in
1159 was finished by Lamberton in 1318. 1 The
castle was about the same age as the Cathedral,
though part of it, erected by Walter Trail, must
have been of somewhat later date. The Convent
of the Black Friars was founded in 1274, and
the Convent of Grey Friars in 1448. The Uni-
versity was constituted by Papal Bull in 1410
(thirteen doctors of divinity, eight doctors of
laws, with doctors learned in logic, rhetoric, and
philosophy, composed its teaching staff) ; but St
Mary's, the youngest of the colleges and the
1 Lamberton was the most
munificent of its Bishops " a
prelate wise, active, and a great
benefactory to the abbey. The
buildings whereof now we only
behold the ruins were erected
upon his charges. He finished
the cathedral church, which had
been many years a -building,
and dedicated the same with
great solemnity in the year
1318. He adorned the chapter-
house with curious seats and
ceiling ; furnished the canons
with precious vestments for the
daily service ; stored their li-
brary with books ; gave unto
the prior and convent, the same
very day, the churches of Dair-
sey and Abercromby ; and dy-
ing at last in the prior's cham-
ber within the monastery, was
buried in the new church, on
the north side of the high altar,
in the year 1328." (Spottis-
woode, i. 107.) It will be ob-
served from this extract that
when Spottiswoode wrote the
ecclestiastical buildings were
spoken of as "ruins."
Politics and Religion. 181
last good work of the elder Beaton, St Mary's
(Quo desiderio veteres revocavit a/mores !) was
not begun till 1538. The magnificent wall, with
its turrets for sharpshooters and its niches for
saints, which encloses the priory and the clois-
ters, was the work of Prior John Hepburn in
1516. Most of the religious buildings were of
exquisite finish and noble design ; while over all
high over all rose the sombre square tower
of St Rule, a building of unknown antiquity.
The citizens of this great seat of learning and
piety had been permitted for many generations
to carry on their beneficent work unmolested.
The peaceful labours of its doctors and divines
had seldom been interrupted by the anarchy and
turbulence which elsewhere prevailed in Scot-
land. It was distant from the Borders, where
the religious houses were periodically " harried,"
and from the mountain -passes, through which
the Redshanks occasionally issued to spoil the
northern monasteries. From the earliest ages
its Bishop had been the " primus," for a hundred
years its Archbishop had been the metropoli-
tan, of Scotland. In a great cathedral city
Catholicism was to be seen at its best and at
its worst; but whatever covert scandals might
exist, the spirit of dissent, of discontent, of criti-
cism, had failed to make itself felt. Until well
on in the sixteenth century no one appeared to
182 Politics and Religion.
suspect that the magnificent vitality of the
Catholic Church had been seriously shaken.
Yet within fifty years, to vary the metaphor,
the whole fabric was in ruins.
The rift was at first barely perceptible. Up
to the close of the reign of James V. in 1542, it
cannot be said that any new scheme of theologi-
cal dogma had been formulated by those who
were dissatisfied with the Church of Rome. The
Lollards who came from Kyle, " that receptacle
of the saints of old," were very outspoken critics
of the established religion ; but the main articles
of their simple protest, dealing with questions of
conduct rather than of doctrine, compare very
favourably with the metaphysical inquisitiveness
and logical hair-splitting which disfigure the Con-
fessions of the later Reformers. John Reseby, a
follower of Wyclif, had been "justified" at St
Andrews in 1408 ; and the Bohemian Paul Craw,
a disciple of Huss, twenty-five years afterwards.
Knox, who inclined to hold with characteristic
narrowness that there was no religion in Scot-
land prior to the Reformation, is yet constrained
to admit, in virtue of that earlier " testimony,"
that even in the time of greatest darkness God
had dealt mercifully with the realm "retaining
within it some spunk of His light."
In 1528 Patrick Hamilton, "many ways in-
famed with heresy, disputing, holding, and main-
Politics and Religion. 183
taining divers heresies of Martin Luther and his
followers," was burnt before " the auld College."
Knox tells us that in all St Andrews at that time
there was none found who did not begin to in-
quire, Whairfor was Maister Patrik Hamilton
brunt? Soon afterwards Henry Forrest "suf-
fered death for his faithful testimony to the
truth," being " burnt at the North Church stile
of the Abbey Church," so that the heretics of
Angus across the water might see the fire,
and possibly mend their ways. John Lindsay
a prudent friend of the Archbishop had been
anxious, on the other hand, that the execution
should be conducted in private, "for the reik
of Master Patrik Hamilton," he said, "had in-
fected as many as it blew upon." In 1534 the
"dumb dogs" "renewed their battle against Jesus
Christ " ; and Norman Gourlay and another were
hanged and burnt at the " Rood of Greenside "
somewhere upon the Calton Hill of Edinburgh,
I presume "to the intent that the inhabitants
of Fife, seeing the fire, might be stricken with
terror and fear." As an Act was passed about
the same time against throwing down of images
and invading of abbeys, symptoms of the icono-
clastic spirit must have already declared them-
selves. We learn from a contemporary writer
that in 1543 " there was ane great heresie in
Dundie ; thair they destroyit the kirkis, and
184 Politics and Religion.
wald have destroyit Aberbrothok," had it not
been for Lord Ogilvy ; : and the coarse and truc-
ulent scepticism of a later age was vigorously
parodied by the Perth humourists, who were
indicted for "nailing two ram's -horns on St
Francis's head, and putting of a cow's tail to
his rump."
It is obvious from these notices that during
the reign of James, the tide of the Eeformation
in Scotland had begun to flow. There was as
yet no very widespread popular feeling on the
subject ; it had not become a " burning question,"
except in the earlier sense of the words ; but a
good many men within the Church itself were
beginning to perceive that the position had
become untenable; and it is clear that in Fife
and Angus at least, many "secret professors"
were to be found. The English envoy, who was
in Scotland during 1540, draws a vivid picture
of the state of parties at Holyrood. He had been
instructed to converse confidentially with the
King on the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs.
The greater monasteries were being dissolved in
England, and Henry wished his Scotch nephew
to take a leaf out of his book. James, however,
who seems to have agreed with the old gentle-
woman of Montrose that swearing was a "great
1 Diurnal of Occurrents.
Politics and Religion. 185
aff-set" to conversation ("By my troth," quoth
he "No, on my soul," quoth he " By God,"
quoth he emphasise nearly every sentence of
the lively report transmitted to the English
Court), was not to be persuaded. There were
two laws, he said, spiritual and temporal ; he
did his duty as regarded the one the other he
committed to the Pope and his ministers. " He
spoke very softly," Sadler adds significantly,
"the Cardinal being present." "And in good
faith," James continued, " I cannot take the
King's advice ; it is against reason and God's
law to put down those abbeys and religious
houses which have stood these many years, and
God's service maintained and keeped in the
same." And he shrewdly concluded, " Besides,
the kirkmen will give me all I want." Sadler then
tried another tack, denouncing the monks as in-
dolent, effeminate, and unchaste. " Oh," quoth
the King, " God forbid that if a few be not good,
for them all the rest shall be destroyed. Though
some be not, there be a great many good, and
the good may be suffered, and the evil must be
reformed ; as ye shall hear," quoth he, " that I
shall help to see it redressed in Scotland by
God's grace, if I brook life." Sadler would have
had them weeded out by the root ; but the King
was firm. " I am sure my uncle will not desire
me to do otherwise than my conscience serveth."
186
Politics and Religion.
The envoy, in a subsequent letter, was forced
to admit that in spite of ecclesiastical scandals,
and the progress of " Christ's word and doctrine "
among the laity, the churchmen were still the
only capable persons in the country to whom
the government could be prudently entrusted.
He had met " a great number of noblemen and
gentlemen that be well given to the verity of
Christ's word and doctrine, but the noblemen be
young. I see none among them that hath any
such agility of wit, gravity, learning, and experi-
ence to take in hand the direction of things. So
that the King is of force driven to use the bishops
and clergy as ministers of the realm. They be
the men of wit and policy ; they be never out
of the King's ear who giveth small care to
his affairs, being given to much pleasure and
pastime." 1
The attitude of James was upon the whole
reasonable ; and, but for the " trajedies " that
followed his death, a prudent and statesmanlike
measure of reform would probably have been
obtained without undue delay. The Scots were
1 Sadler was a layman who
understood the language of
diplomacy, whereas Barlow,
Henry's chaplain, was much
more outspoken and naive.
While Sadler admitted that the
Catholic Bishops who held the
great offices of state discharged
their duties with discretion and
address, Barlow roundly de-
clared that the Scottish king
was surrounded " by the Pope's
pestilent creatures and very
limbs of the devil."
Politics and Religion. 187
partly responsible, no doubt ; but the burden of
blame does not rest on them. It was the frantic
and irrational violence of Henry VIII. that made
Reformation in Scotland impossible for wellnigh
twenty years.
James Beaton, the Archbishop of St Andrews,
died in 1539. He had had a checkered experi-
ence. He was the churchman whose conscience
" clattered " at the conference which led to
Cleanse-the-Causey. He had ventured to beard
the Douglas, and Douglas had proved the
stronger. The Archbishop was forced to hide
himself : disguised as a shepherd, he had herded
sheep on Bogran-knowe, among the wilds of
Angus. He was succeeded in the primacy by
his nephew. James Beaton was a churchman of
fairly average intelligence ; but David Beaton
was the foremost statesman of his time. Had it
not been for the implacable animosity of Knox,
the youthful irregularities of the great Cardinal
might possibly have been forgotten. The ghast-
ly caricature of his last night in this world rests,
so far as I am aware, on unauthenticated rumour;
and there is little in his character and career
to justify the bitter invective of the Reformer
against " the bloody butcher " of the saints of
God. Beaton was a secular statesman as well
as an anointed bishop ; and it is probable that
the policy he adopted when he brought Wishart
188 Politics and Religion.
to the scaffold was directed as much against
sedition as against heresy. There can be little
doubt that Wishart was aware of Henry's designs
upon the Cardinal, and that the tragedy in the
Castle of St Andrews had been rehearsed long
before. The ferocious jocularity of the Reformer
over the mangled body " these things we write
merily " is eminently characteristic, but does
not impress us with any high sense either of
his charity or his sagacity. For the murder was
a political blunder as well as a political crime.
Approved by a few stern and bitter fanatics,
the death of Beaton scandalised the nation.
Henry had devastated the Scottish Border; he
had burnt the Scottish capital ; now he had
murdered the only Scottish statesman of Euro-
pean repute. The patriotic fire flamed up, and
the people who had been on the verge of a
spiritual revolt went back meekly to the Catho-
lic fold. The Scots fighting at Pinkie reproached
the English for having deserted the ancient
faith. To be esteemed a heretic was thenceforth
for many years nearly as disgraceful as to be
esteemed an Englishman.
The reaction was in its nature temporary.
The wave fell back, but the tide had not slack-
ened. Nor might its further advance, beneficent
or destructive, be arrested by any dike which
panic-stricken orthodoxy could raise. The only
Politics and Religion. 189
question that remained to be settled when Leth-
ington, as a potential force, appeared on the
field, involved merely the old struggle between
the less and the more. Was it to be a moderate
and constitutional reform, largely undertaken
from within, that is to say, by the Courts of
the Church itself? or was it to be Revolution?
Knox elected to break with the past : he could
not help himself, it may be ; but the wisdom of
his choice is still open to doubt. The Reformer
in after years may sometimes have regretted
that he turned a deaf ear to Hamilton's em-
phatic warning : " The Reformation in many
things was not without reason, yet you will do
well to provide yourselves with some new polity
before you shake off the old. Our hill-men have
a custom, when breaking a colt, to fasten two
strong tethers to its head, one of which they
keep fast till it is thoroughly made. The multi-
tude, that beast with many heads, should just
be so dealt with. Master Knox, I know, esteem-
eth me an enemy ; but tell him from me he shall
find it true that I speak."
The forces, direct and indirect, which shaped
the Scottish Reformation, were very various.
The " heresies of Martin Luther " were in the
air. At certain seasons it is almost as difficult
to escape the infection of heresy as it is difficult
at others to escape the infection of fever. It
190 Politics and Religion.
came from England with the fugitives who had
fled from the cruelties of the Marian bishops ;
Scottish merchants and mariners trading with
the Low Countries and the Rhine brought it
back with their goods. The new generation,
the rising men, the men of wit and spirit and
learning, who could use their tongues and their
pens with effect upon the people, were eager for
change. The popular minstrelsy, sacred and
profane, was on the side of the Reformers. The
martyrs had borne their sufferings with meek-
ness and patience ; and heroic legends gathered
round the scaffolds. The Scottish nobles, who
had long regarded with a greedy eye the im-
mense treasures of the Church, now knew that
the English peers had been enriched from the
hoards of the clergy. And the corruption of the
monastic orders, the failure of discipline, the
degradation of doctrine, had produced grave
scandals which could no longer be tolerated by
a society in which the moral sense was not dead.
The Protestant indictment of the Catholic
Church in Scotland, however, has been far too
sweeping.
No one certainly, except a bigot or a fanatic,
will be disposed to undervalue the constancy of
the Scottish martyrs at stake and scaffold. In
the record of each execution there are pathetic
little touches of humour and pathos which cling
Politics and Religion. 191
indelibly to the memory ; Wishart's simple
words of leave-taking, " for they would drink
no more with him " ; the fortitude of the Perth
journeymen, " every one comforting another,
and assuring themselves to suppe together in
the kingdom of heaven that night"; Helen
Stirk's farewell to the husband with whom she
had earnestly desired to die, " Therefore I will
not bidde you good-night, for we sail suddanlie
meet with joy in the kingdom of heaven"; and
her own death thereafter, in the pool hard by,
when she had given the baby at her breast
" the sucking bairn " to one of the bystanders.
These had no fear of the dark road they were to
travel, " they constantly triumphed over Death
and Sathan, even in the midst of the flaming
fyre." Nor is the human weakness of Ninian
Kennedy, who " at first was faint, and gladly
would have recanted," less impressive or touch-
ing. Kennedy, like Cranmer, shrank from the
fiery ordeal, yet in the hour of mortal agony was
constant to what he held to be the truth. It
may well be that the " faintness " of men like
Cranmer and Kennedy is not less acceptable to
Him who holds up "the hands which hang
down, and the feeble knees," than the confident
and unfaltering witness of the strong man who
goes to the stake with a song of thanksgiving on
his lips, and a sense of triumph in his heart.
192 Politics and Religion.
The nobility, the constancy, the heroism, of
these simple people are beyond all praise ; yet
in fairness it must be remembered that the
whole number of persons who suffered for heresy
in Scotland was not large. The iniquitous in-
dustry of the Inquisition in the Netherlands is
branded in black letters on the page of history.
Men and women were strangled, beheaded, and
burned alive in hundreds, because they had
murmured against the rapacity of the priests, or
could repeat a paraphrase by Clement Marot.
It was estimated that before 1566 more than
fifty thousand persons suspected of heresy had
been put to death. Torture is not cumulative ;
the suffering of a thousand is not more intense
than the suffering of one ; and it may be argued
that the culpability of the Inquisitor is not to
be measured by the number of his victims.
Apart from such abstruse paradoxes, however,
it must be acknowledged that the religious per-
secution in Scotland was comparatively light.
It cannot be said with any show of justice that
the Scottish bishops were unmerciful. They did
not love blood as Philip and Alva loved blood.
It is clear, I think, that for many years the new
opinions were unpopular, and that the ecclesias-
tical authorities had a free hand. "Then the
people cried, ' Burne him ! burne him ! " I have
no note of the exact numbers who suffered at Edin-
Politics and Religion.
193
burgh and St Andrews ; but I incline to believe
that from first to last, during a period of twenty
or thirty years, not more than twenty or thirty
persons were put to death. The barbarous
manner in which death was inflicted shocks our
sensibilities ; but at the time, and long after-
wards, it was regarded in quite a different light.
Heretics were burnt ; so were witches ; and I
venture to say that, more than once after the
Eeformation, the old women who were burnt,
during a single twelvemonth, because they rode
on broomsticks to a midnight meeting with the
devil, or turned themselves into cats and dis-
turbed the neighbours by their caterwauling,
outnumbered the heretics who were burnt dur-
ing the whole period between 1538 and 1558 by
" those bloody beasts," " those ravenous wolves,"
"those slaves of Satan," "those cruel tyrants
and unmerciful hypocrites," Cardinal David
Beaton and Archbishop James Hamilton. 1 We
1 Epithets culled from Knox
and Calderwood. I shall have
occasion to speak of the trials
for witchcraft later on ; here I
would only remark, that while
there is sufficient evidence to
show that the martyrs died well
(though most of the lengthy
"last speeches" are probably
apocryphal), it is clear that
the unfortunate creatures, who
VOL. I.
were burnt and drowned as
witches, bore themselves with
equal (and really quite inex-
plicable) fortitude. " Inexpli-
cable," I say ; for we must re-
member that, unlike the mar-
tyrs, they had no lofty convic-
tion of duty, no fervour of
faith, to support them ; they
were only the mean and vulgar
victims of a popular delusion,
H
194
Politics and Religion.
must remember, moreover, that the Catholic
prelate had been taught to consider heresy a
deadly crime, and that to burn the perishable
body was to save the immortal soul. Estab-
and yet they died like heroes.
The confessions they made
while under torture (of Agnes
Simpson, it is said, "they
caused her to be conveyed into
prison, there to receive such
torture as hath been lately pro-
vided for witches in that coun-
try ;" the obstinate warlock,
Dr Fian, "so deeply had the
devil entered into his heart,"
would not confess, although
his nails had been " pulled off
with a pair of pincers," and his
legs had been " so crushed and
beaten together that the blood
and marrow spurted forth")
the confessions thus obtained
were gruesomely grotesque.
"At North Berwick Kirk the
devil enjoined them all to a
penance, which was that they
should kiss his buttocks, in sign
of duty to him, which, being put
over the pulpit base, every one
did as he had commanded
them." " They took a cat and
christened it, and the following
night the said cat was con-
veyed into the middest of the
sea by all these witches sail-
ing in their riddles or cives."
Isabel Grierson was burnt, and
her ashes scattered to the
winds, for going to Adam
Clark's house " in the likeness
of his own cat " ; Alice Nisbet
suffered death for using the
words "the bones to the fire
and the soul to the devil," to
take away the pains of labour ;
Agnes Finnie was worried at
the stake, and then burnt to
ashes, " for that falling a scold-
ing with Bessie Currie about a
bad sixpence, she threatened
that she would gar the defl
tak a bite of her." John Knox
(although the Catholic satirists
accused him of being a warlock
himself, and thus securing the
affection of Lord Ochiltree's
daughter " ane damosel of
noble blood, and he ane auld
decrepit creature of maist base
degree of any that could be
found in the country") had a
keen nose for a witch. Lady
Buccleuch, Lady Athol, Lady
Huntly (and "her principal
witch called Jonet") figure
prominently in the narrative.
The story of Alison Balfour
has been vividly narrated by
Mr Froude (Short Studies, i.
185). The last execution of a
Politics and Religion, 195
listed institutions die hard ; but it may be truly
said that in no other organic revolution of so
wide a sweep was the loss of life among the
assailants so inconsiderable.
I have already referred to the part taken by
approved writers, like Sir David Lindsay, in
the work of the Reformation. But there was
another class of writers, represented to us by
the Wedderburns, 1 who rendered essential ser-
vice. These men, who must have possessed no
mean poetic faculty, took the popular songs and
rhymes, many of which were lewd and obscene,
and converted them into spirited hymns, in
which the Lord was praised and the Pope de-
nounced with equal energy and acerbity. The
framers of the statute of 1551 complain that
" printers constantly print buiks concerning the
faith, ballads, songs, blasphemous rhymes, as
well of kirkmen as temporals." These broad-
sheets were scattered over the land, and were
witch in Scotland took place
at Dornoch in 1722, an old
woman, who, on being brought
out for execution, the weather
of Witchcraft, p. 200.)
1 James Wedderburn, the
elder brother, who had a " good
gift of poesie," escaped from
being severe, sat composedly j the persecution, and died at
warming herself by the fire Dieppe. It was his brother
prepared to consume her, while
the other instruments of death
were being got ready. (C.
Kirkpatrick Sharpe's History
John who turned indecent
" songs and rhymes " into godly
hymns. Calderwood, i. 143.
196 Politics and Religion.
immensely relished by a class to which more
serious argument would probably have failed to
appeal. The "Gude and Godly Ballates" are
thus extremely interesting to those who are
anxious to ascertain how the Reformation
the change of religious opinion among the
masses was brought about. They are what
we would now call evangelical in their tone,
and the music often recalls the rhythms and
refrains of that negro minstrelsy which recent
revivalism has appropriated. The language in
which they are written is remarkably pure ;
I am not acquainted, indeed, with any better
specimens of the idiomatic vigour and liquid
sweetness of the Scots tongue at its best. A
genuine vernacular melody pervades such lines
as these :
" my deir heart, young Jesus sweit,
Prepare thy creddill in my spreit,
And I sail rock thee in my heart,
And never rnair from thee depart ; "
or these (from the rendering of the 124th
Psalm) :
" Like to ane bird tane in a net,
The whilk the fowler for her set,
Sa is our life weel win away."
They look forward with confidence to a trium-
phant issue, " Be mirrie and glad, and be no
more sad, The day of the Lord draws neir,"
Politics and Religion. 197
"Hay now the day dawns, The night is neere
gone," and the note of victory is well sus-
tained :
" The net is broken in pieces small,
And we are savit fra their shame.
Our hope was ay and ever sail
Be in the Lord, and in his name,
The whilk hes creat hevin so hie,
And made the eird so marveilouslie,
And all the ferlies of the same."
The burden of the hymns, as was natural, is
the superiority of the worship of our Lord to
the worship of saint or Virgin, "For ye were
all at God's horn; This babe to you that now
is born, Sail make you saif and for you die,
And you restore to liberty ; " " He tholit
pains, Of hunger, cauld, and miserie, And we
gat life when he did die." The adaptation of
the popular airs sometimes produces a rather
grotesque effect, as in the lines with the re-
frain, " Who is at my window ? who ? who ?
Goe from my window ; goe, goe ; " or in those
into which the " Huntsman's Chorus " is intro-
duced :
" With hunts up, with hunts up,
It is now perfite day ;
Jesus our King is gane in hunting,
Who likes to speed they may.
The hunter is Christ that hunts in haist,
The hunds are Peter and Paul ;
The Paip is the fox, Rome is the rox
That rubbis us on the gall."
198 Politics and Religion.
Vigorously idiomatic as these verses are, those
on the monks, friars, and nuns, which begin :
" Of Scotland well the friers of Faill
The limmery lang hes lastit,
The monka of Melrose made gude kaill
On Friday when they fastit ; "
are even more telling. The rapacity of the
pardoners who gave "remission of sins in auld
sheep's skins," and of the friars who made
fortunes out of the pains of purgatory, "the
reik sa wonder dear they salde, For money,
gold, and landes," and out of worthless masses
for the dead, "Requiem seternam fast they
patter, Before the deid with holy water," leads
up to the conclusion of the whole matter,
"The Paip, that pagan full of pride, He hes
us blinded lang."
I have said that the charges against the Cath-
olic clergy have been somewhat highly coloured
by Protestant apologists. But when every
reasonable allowance is made, it must be ad-
mitted that the state of the Church invited
attack. The best men were aware that reform
was inevitable ; and, in point of fact, the repair
of the ecclesiastical edifice had been undertaken
when the storm burst. The scandals connected
with concubinage, the traffic in indulgences,
non-residence, pluralities, and the action of the
Consistorial Courts, had attracted the attention
Politics and Religion. 199
of the Convention which met at Edinburgh in
1549, and appropriate remedies were being
devised. Whether these would have proved
effectual cannot now be known. The Church,
if not dead, was moribund ; and it may be that
more trenchant treatment was needed than the
orthodox surgery would have sanctioned.
Where there is smoke there is fire ; and a
long period of ease and prosperity had undoubt-
edly demoralised the clergy. Their wealth, their
numbers, their indolence, their sensuality, their
rapacity, their childish ignorance and vanity,
furnished abundant material for the popular
moralist and the popular satirist. The people
had lost faith in them ; they had lost faith in
themselves. The energies of a vast organisation
were paralysed by indecision and indifference as
much as by incapacity. The life had been eaten
out of its service ; there was no reality in its
creed. The prayers were learned by rote ; the
sermons were mechanical and perfunctory. The
fiery zeal of the Eeformers gave force to their
denunciations and a rude eloquence to their
appeals ; and the common people, deserting the
splendid shrines which the piety of their ances-
tors had raised, flocked to listen to teachers who
were in deadly earnest. The spells which had
been potent had lost their force. The " curse "
pronounced by the priest had once been tremen-
200 Politics and Religion.
dously effective ; but it had been vulgarised by
mean and mercenary use ; and now when the
Vicar rose on Sunday and cried, " One hath tint
a spurtell ; there is a flail stolen beyond the
barn ; the good-wife on the other side of the
gate hath lost a horn-spoon ; God's curse and
mine I give to them that knoweth of this gear,
and restores it not ! " the people laughed in his
face. The denunciations of the Church, like so
much else, had become a farce, which provoked
open ridicule. Even the rustic gossip, drinking
his " Sunday's penny " at the ale-house door,
would jest with the passing friar upon the pru-
dent economy of his investment. " Will they
not give us a letter of cursing for a plack, to last
for a whole year, to curse all that looks over our
dike? That keepeth our corn better than the
sleeping boy, who will have three shillings in
fee, a sark, and a pair of shoon in the year."
The exactions of the Church, however, especially
in the Consistorial Courts, ultimately became
oppressive, and excited the keenest resentment.
The experience of the litigants before these
ecclesiastical tribunals supplied not a few shafts
for Lindsay's quiver. Many of them no doubt
had found with the unlucky " Pauper " in ' The
Three Estates/ that while the expenses of pro-
cess were ruinous, no redress was to be had,
" Bot I gat never my gude gray meir again."
Politics and Religion. 201
According to a manuscript in the Advocates'
Library, there were at the time of the Reforma-
tion about four thousand six hundred men and
women in Scotland charged with ecclesiastical
duties. Of these, thirteen were bishops, sixty
priors and abbots, five hundred parsons, two
thousand vicars, eleven hundred monks, friars,
and nuns. This was a tremendous drain upon
the productive power of the country; but the
property which had been diverted from secular
uses to the support of the priesthood was, pro-
portionately, even greater. The resources of the
Church were immense : it has been estimated
(though the estimate is probably much exagger-
ated) that the clergy drew in one form or other
one half of the annual income of the land.
"Halfe the riches on the molde is seasit in
their handes." The possession of such enormous
wealth was of course attended with danger, as
well as fertile of abuse. In the first place, it
led to what was in effect the secularisation of
the temporalities the great prizes of the
Church : they became a provision for needy
courtiers and royal bastards. The Archbishop
of St Andrews, who fell at Flodden, was the
natural son of James III. ; and long before the
Reformation, the revenues of the great abbeys
and priories were held in commendam by lay-
men whose services to the State could not be
202 Politics and Religion.
otherwise rewarded. In the next place, it excited
the cupidity of the needy nobles. Arran was
not credited by his contemporaries with keen
political discernment ; but when he told Sadler
that so many great men in the kingdom were
Papists, that " unless the sin of covetousness
brought them to it," he saw no chance of refor-
mation, he proved himself a true prophet ; he
hit the nail on the head. The Reformed preach-
ers did their part fairly well ; but if the title of
the aristocracy to the patrimony of the Church
of Koine had not been identified with Protestant-
ism, it is probable that the Church of Knox
would have been short-lived. It was of the
English nobles that Hallam remarked in a rare
epigram, " According to the general laws of
human nature, they gave a readier reception to
truths which made their estates more secure " ;
but the irony would have been even more in-
cisive if it had been applied to the " gaunt and
hungry nobles of Scotland."
Although the Church had become a dead
weight upon the productive industry of the
nation, the burden might have been borne with-
out serious complaint if the clergy could have
retained the respect of the influential laity. I
do not attach much importance, as I have said,
to the grosser charges in the indictment against
the Church. Knox's legends of monastic gallan-
Politics and Religion. 203
tries are like the stories of Boccaccio. " Mr
Norman Galloway was brunt," Pitscottie says,
" because he married ane wife ; but if he had
had ane thousand whoors, he had never been
quarrelled." "They think na shame," one of
the moralists in ' The Three Estates ' observes,
" to have ane huir, and some hes three."
There is no reason to doubt that celibacy led to
concubinage ; but the connection, in the case of
the secular clergy at least, was not regarded, by
the opinion of the time, as immoral : it was a
domestic and permanent arrangement, and only
in a technical sense (as wanting the formal sanc-
tion of the Church) differed from marriage.
When we hear of the proclamation in open Par-
liament of clerical irregularities in high places,
we are apt to impute the disclosure to a cynical
disregard of public opinion and public decency,
the truth being that, until the very eve of the
Reformation, concubinage did not in any ap-
preciable measure offend the conscience of the
community.
To maintain, however, that concubinage was
not demoralising, is to shut our eyes to the plain-
est facts. A certain looseness and laxity of moral
fibre was unquestionably the result of an equiv-
ocal connection ; and it was at least indirectly
responsible for the sloth, ignorance, and spiritual
apathy which had come to characterise the cleri-
204 Politics and Religion.
cal caste. Lindsay's satire is most trenchant
when it is directed against the indolence of the
priesthood. " Sleuthful idilness" is an injury to
the Commonwealth. " Qua laboures nocht he
sail not eat," is the salutary moral which he is
constantly enforcing. Nor was the ignorance
of the clerical teacher less open to observation.
"The ignorance of the times was so great, that
even the priests did think the New Testament
to have been composed by Martin Luther."
Nor was this ignorance any bar to preferment.
George Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, " a man
nobly disposed and a great housekeeper," is
reported to have thanked God that he knew
neither the Old Testament nor the New, and
"yet had prospered well enough in his day."
The frivolous subtleties which engaged the atten-
tion of the learned were perhaps even more
symptomatic of the state of mental torpor into
which the Church had fallen. The great Pater-
noster controversy was, we learn, the occasion
of fierce and prolonged debate. Should the
Paternoster be addressed to the saints, or to
God only ? That was the question. " In the
University the contention ceased not ; where-
upon the doctors did assemble to dispute and
decide the question. In that meeting some held
that the Paternoster was said to God formaliter,
and to saints materialiter ; others, not liking
Politics and Religion. 205
this distinction, said that the Paternoster ought
to be said to God principaliter, and to saints
minus principaliter; others would have it ulti-
mate et non ultimate ; others primario et secun-
dario ; and some (wherewith the most voices
went) that it should be said to God capiendo
stride, and to saints capiendo large." As the
doctors differed, the question was referred to the
Synod, where it was diplomatically determined,
after long debate, that the Paternoster ought to
be said to God, "yet so that the saints ought
also to be invoked."
To this the doctors had come. The people
sat in darkness, while spiritual and intellectual
stupor settled, like densest fog, upon the Church.
The monasteries, as nurseries of learning and
of the arts, of statesmen and jurists, of poets
and historians, had accomplished the object for
which they were instituted. The end had come.
The old order passed away. Fresh activities
were being called into action ; new weapons
were being forged. The monotonous lesson
which universal experience enforces was repeat-
ing itself once again. System after system has
its day ; institution succeeds institution ;
" And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
CHAPTER FIVE.
THE EVE OF THE REFORMATION.
TvURING the year 1559 the figure of the young
Laird of Lethington becomes brilliantly dis-
tinct ; a flood of light is poured upon him ; we
have thenceforth week by week, sometimes day
by day, the letters written by himself, as well
as constant allusions to him in the letters of his
contemporaries. Previous to 1559 the notices,
on the contrary, are singularly bald and curt ;
and we seek in vain for any adequate explana-
tion of the amazing influence which we find him
wielding when he suddenly emerges from almost
total obscurity. We are still, therefore (except
for a few salient facts), in the region of conjec-
ture, and must piece together the scanty mate-
rial at our disposal as best we can.
We have seen that Sir Richard was not an
ardent Reformer, and his attitude to the contro-
versies of the time is not unskilfully defined by
Knox. Wishart, attended by Knox (carrying
The Eve of the Reformation. 207
his uncomfortable two-handed sword, we may
presume), had been a guest at Lethington the
night before his apprehension. " The second
nicht he lay in Lethingtoun, the Laird whereof
was ever civil, albeit not persuaded in religion."
Ever civil, albeit not persuaded in religion. That
was in 1546, when the younger Lethington was
still a lad. It is probable, indeed, that he was
absent from home at the time, at St Andrews
or elsewhere. The Eeformer does not allude to
him, as he probably would have done had he
then made the acquaintance of one who was
afterwards so famous, and so closely associated
with the new order of things. In 1553 Maitland
was married to Janet, the daughter of Menteith
of Kerse ; and during the next year at latest
he must have entered the public service, the
first payment of a pension of one hundred and
fifty pounds being then entered in the Treasurer's
accounts. It is not until 1555, however, that
he is introduced into Knox's narrative ; and the
earliest allusion is very significant. Knox re-
turned from Geneva sometime during the autumn
of that year " in the end of the harvest " to
find that, in the capital at least, there were many
secret " professors " of the Reformed doctrines,
who did not scruple to join in the worship, and
to partake of the sacraments, of the Catholic
Church. To bow in the house of Eimmon was
208 The Eve of the Reformation.
an offence which the intrepid Reformer could not
stomach, and against which he vehemently pro-
tested. The mass was idolatry, and it was a
deadly sin to hold any truce with the idolater.
" Wherewith the conscience of some being ef-
frayed, the matter began to be agitat fra man to
man, and so was the said John called to supper
by the Laird of Dun, for that same purpose,
whare was convened David Forress, Maister Ro-
bert Lockhart, John Willock, and William Mait-
land of Lethingtoun, younger, a man of good
learning and of sharp wit and reasoning. The
question was proposed, and it was answered
by the said John, ' That it was nowise lawful
to present himself to that idol.' Nothing was
omitted that micht mak for the temperisar, and
yet was every head so fully answered, and espe-
cially ane whairunto they thocht their great
defence stood (to wit, that Paul, at the command-
ment of James, and of the elders of Jerusalem,
passed to the Temple and feigned himself to pay
his vows with the others). This, we say, and
others, were so fully answered, that William
Maitland concluded, saying, ' I see perfectly
that our shifts will serve nothing before God,
seeing that they stand us in so small stead be-
fore man.' The answer of John Knox to the
fact of Paul, and to the commandment of James,
was, that Paul's fact had nothing to do with
The Eve of the Reformation. 209
their going to Mass ; for to pay vows was some-
times God's commandment, and was never idol-
atry ; but their Mass from the beginning was
and remained odious idolatry ; therefore the
facts were most unlike. Secondarily (said he),
I greatly doubt whether either James's com-
mandment or Paul's obedience proceeded from
the Holy Ghost." The passage is extremely
characteristic, and, in so far as it represents
the original conflict of opinion (afterwards to
become more pronounced) between the mode-
rate and radical parties in the infant Church,
extremely instructive. This was the first con-
troversy between Knox and Maitland of which
any record has been preserved ; it was the first
of many in which (according to Knox) " the said
John " was uniformly successful. One would
have liked to hear, on this as on other occasions,
what Lethington for his part had to say;
whether he acknowledged, or whether he denied,
that he had been driven from the field, and
that the preacher was more than a match for the
politician. These academical controversies will
be fully described and discussed in a future
chapter ; meantime it is enough to point out
that the passage I have quoted admirably illus-
trates one of the Reformer's most characteristic
traits, his profound confidence in his own infal-
libility. Victory remained with him ; but it was
VOL. i. o
210 Tlie Eve of the Reformation.
a victory not over Lethington only, but over
Lethington with James and Paul at his back.
" I greatly doubt whether either James's com-
mandment or Paul's obedience proceeded from
the Holy Ghost."
Knox was now fifty years old, and the great
work of his life still lay in the future. From
the park of Lethington one looks down upon the
hamlet where he was born the suburb of Had-
dington, on the further bank of the Tyne. It
seems to me, I confess, a most strange coincidence
that the two most remarkable men the two
most notable figures of the age in Scotland,
should have had, as we may say, a common
birthplace, should have sprung, so to speak,
from the same soil ; for the Castle of Lethington
is barely a mile from the " Gilford Gait." More
than twenty years had passed since Knox had
received from a Black Friar that Black Friar
against whom the Grey Friars " rouped as they
had been ravens, yea, rather, they yelled and
roared as devils in hell" his first "taste of the
truth." Since then his adventures had rivalled
the apostle's, "In journeyings often, in perils
of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine
own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in
perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in
perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren ;
in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often,
The Eve of the Reformation. 211
in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold
and nakedness." He had gone to St Andrews
after the Cardinal's slaughter an act which,
like the murder of Kizzio, 1 he cordially ap-
proved; he had been ordained to the ministry
in the Abbey Church, not by the hands of
the bishop, but by the call of the brethren ;
he had been in the Castle during the siege ;
he had been made prisoner by the French ;
he had been a galley-slave for many months,
and had seen far off at sea from the bench
to which he was chained, the burnished copper
of the cathedral roof reflect the morning sun.
Then he was released ; but the clouds had
closed over Scotland, and he did not venture to
return. So he had remained abroad mainly
with Calvin at Geneva until landing at Leith,
in the September of 1555, he began to exhort
secretly in the house where he lodged, the
house of James Syme, "that notable man of
God." It was there and then that he met Eliza-
1 This has been denied ; but
the evidence is conclusive.
Thus, when speaking of the
old Lord Ruthven, he adds,
" Father to him that prudently
gave counsel to tack just pun-
ishment upon that knave Da-
vie " ; and again, " That great
abuser of this commonwealth,
that pultron and vile knave
Davie, was jnstlie punished by
, who, all for their just act,
and most worthy of all praise,
are now unworthily left of their
brethren, and suffer the bitter-
ness of banishment and exile."
History of the Reformation,
i. 99, 235.
212 The Eve of the Reformation.
beth Adamson, of whose death he has left so
impressive a narrative. " And she shortly there-
after slept in the Lord Jesus, to the no small
comfort of those who saw her blessed departing.
This we could not omit of this worthy woman,
who gave sa notable a confession, before that the
great licht of God's word did universallie shine
throughout this realm."
It is obvious, from Knox's narrative, that as
early as 1555, Maitland occupied a recognised
and assured position. On that occasion he ap-
pears to have been the spokesman of the party
which was inclined to " temporise." That party
had not resolved definitely to break with the
Catholic Church, or to embark in a religious war
of which the issue could not be foreseen, but
which was certain, whenever fanatical passion
was roused, to be carried to the last extremity.
It was the party of the Renaissance rather than
of the Reformation, of the new learning rather
than of the New Light. It was the party to
which the younger men mainly belonged, the
men of wider culture and a more liberal creed.
Of these moderate men, who in one sense,
however, most truly represented the distinctive
principles of the Revolution, Lethington was the
leader. To him, more impressively than to the
others, the dying appeal of Wedderburn might
have been addressed, " We have been acting
The Eve of the Reformation. 213
our part in the theater ; you are to succeed ; see
that you act your part faithfullie ! "
The scene to which I have just alluded must
be kept in mind if we desire to understand Leth-
ington's attitude during the next four years. He
was now in the service of Marie of Lorraine;
three years later, on the death of Bishop Panter
of Ross, he became her Secretary of State. He
was at first probably employed chiefly in diplo-
matic correspondence ; but he was sent as an
envoy to London in February 1558, and again
to Paris, in a similar capacity, in March 1559.
It is probably to the latter mission that Buchanan
refers in the ' Chameleon,' when he asserts that
Maitland actually outwitted the Cardinal of
Lorraine, who was then esteemed the first diplo-
matist in Europe. But during all these years
he seems to have taken little, if any, part in the
domestic controversies of the time. Some of the
polemical papers issued by the Government were
probably drawn by him ; but his name does not
appear. His relations with the Regent must have
been very confidential : there is a curious entry
in the Treasurer's accounts which points to close
social intimacy " To the Regent 10, to play
at the carts with the Earl of Huntley and young
Lethingtoun ; " and Lord Wharton, writing to
London in November 1557, expressly mentions
that Maitland was then "great with the Dowager."
214 The Eve of the Reformation.
Knox was very wroth when the Queen was
appointed Eegent. She was a Catholic ; she
was a female ; and the author of ' The Monstrous
Eegiment of Women ' was naturally indignant.
" She was made Regent in the year of God 1554,
and a crown put upon her head, as seemly a
sight {if men had eyes) as to put a saddle
upon the back of ane unruly cow." For Leth-
ington, however, the large and magnanimous
nature of Marie of Lorraine must have had a
powerful attraction ; and the political opinions
which she held were in harmony with his own. 1
She appears to have been sincerely anxious to
promote a moderate policy, to conciliate public
opinion, to reconcile the contending factions, to
bring about an accord. She failed as she was
bound to fail. Between the obstinate conserva-
tism of the Bishop of Moray, who would not put
1 Her love of justice was
proverbial. " Do justice," she
wrote to the judges, "to this
poor woman, for they have
done her great wrong ; the small
flies are taken in the spider's
web, and the large ones pass
through." National MSS. of
Scotland, vol. iii., No. 28. " In
her court," says Spottiswoode,
" she kept a wonderful gravity,
tolerating no licentiousness ; her
maids were always busied in
some virtuous exercise, and to
them she was an ensample every
way of modesty, chastity, and
the best virtues." Spottis-
woode, i. 320. This is the
woman against whom Knox,
inflated with spiritual pride,
denounced the judgment of
God. " Within few days after,
yea, some say that very day,
began her belly and loathsome
legs to swell, and so continued
till that God did execute His
judgment upon her."
The Eve of the Reformation. 215
away his concubine " mair nor the Bishop of
St Andrews," on the one hand, and the arid but
passionate dogmatism of Knox and Glencairn on
the other, it was hopeless to look for compromise.
War was inevitable. The charges of bad faith
that the preachers directed against the Eegent
are now discredited. The pledges of princes,
she is reported to have said, were not to be too
strictly construed. " It became not subjects to
burden their princes with promises, further than
it pleaseth them to keep the same." Such
speeches rest on Knox's unsupported testimony.
The Eeformer, we have seen, was easily gulled ;
he implicitly accepted every piece of idle gossip
that told against the enemies of the truth ; his
wonderfully animated and realistic narrative is
the chronique scandaleuse of the Reformation.
The Regent did not mean to deceive ; it was the
position that was equivocal. She was carried
in different directions by contending currents,
whose violence she could not control. She did
her best, I believe. She was anxious that the
ecclesiastical estate should be purified so far
she went with the Reformers ; but at the same
time she was zealous for the ancient faith. Had
Lethington (or such as Lethington) been able
to retain command of the reforming forces, an
" accord " might have been arrived at. But they
escaped from his control. Knox's coarser and
216 The Eve of the Reformation.
more imperative personality stamped itself in-
delibly upon the infant Church. The movement
gained momentum as it proceeded. The flood
increased in destructiveness as it descended. It
ceased to be Eeform ; it grew to be Revolution.
On the one side, there was the congregation of
Jesus Christ ; on the other, the synagogue of
Satan. The ancient temples of the faith were
" monuments of idolatry ; " the priests who min-
istered at their altars, " Baal's shaven sort," who
" bare the beast's mark." The framers of the
famous address " To the Generation of Anti-
christ, the Pestilent Prelates and their Shavelings
within Scotland" gave characteristic utterance
to the feeling which was growing rapidly more
intense : " Yea, we shall begin that same war
which God commanded Israel to execute against
the Canaanites ; that is, contract of peace shall
never be made till ye desist from your open
idolatry and cruel persecution of God's children.
And this we signify unto you in the name of
the eternal God, and of His Son Jesus Christ,
whose verity we profess, and Evangel we will
have preached, and holy sacraments rightly min-
istrat, so long as God will assist us to gainstand
your idolatry."
Nor was this all. The Congregation gradually
became the focus of political disaffection as well
as of religious animosity. They produced autho-
The Eve of the Reformation. 217
rities from Holy Writ for sedition and rebellion
as well as for murder. Crude democratic theo-
ries were in vogue. A theocracy saturated with
socialism was the form of government which the
leaders of the movement openly approved. The
Eomish priests had appropriated the patrimony
of the people ; and the singular certification of
the beggars " The Blynd, Cruked, Bedrelles,
Wedowis, Orphelingis, and all uther Pure, sa
viseit be the hand of God, as may not worke "
might have been penned by Mirabeau or St Just.
"We have thought good therefore, or we enter
with you in conflict, to warn you in the name of
the great God, by this public writing, affixed on
the gates where ye now dwell, that ye remove
furth of our said Hospitals, betwixt this and the
feast of Whitsunday next, so that we, the only
lawful proprietors thereof, may enter thereto,
and afterward enjoy thai commodities of the
Kirk, quhilk ye have hereunto wrongouslie
halden fra us." The letters that the Congre-
gation addressed to the Kegent were arrogant
and masterful, letters that might rather, as she
said, "have come from a prince to his subjects
than from subjects to them that bare authority."
It was at this time that the modern theory that
the governor is the servant of the governed, and
therefore liable to be censured at their pleasure,
first took shape. Knox, indeed, accepted the
218 The Eve of the Reformation.
doctrine of popular rights and civil licence with a
characteristic reservation, the anathema against
the unpopular ruler was to be pronounced by a
prophet of the Lord. " We cannot forbid our
preachers to reprehend that which the Spirit of
God, speaking in the prophets and apostles, have
reprehended before them. Eliah did personally
reprove Achab and Jesabel of idolatry, of avarice,
murther, and such-like. Isaias called the magis-
trates of Jerusalem, in his time, companions of
thieves, princes of Sodom, bribe-takers, and mur-
therers. Jeremie said, the bones of King Jehoi-
akim should wither with the sun. Christ called
Herod a fox. Paul called the High Priest a
painted wall, and prayed to God that he would
strike him, because, against justice, he com-
manded him to be smitten." l It may be added
that, among the Reformers, even before Eliza-
beth succeeded to the English throne, the old
enmity to England was dead or dying. Certain
tragic accidents connected with Mary's mar-
1 Knox resented the imputa-
tion of sedition, but on very
slender grounds ; and the Queen
gave expression to the general
feeling when she wrote that " it
is not the advancement of the
Word and religion which is
sought at this time, but rather
a pretence to overthrow or al-
ter" the existing Government.
Knox admits that the charge
was generally believed. " For
many (and our brethren of Lo-
thian especially) began to mur-
mur that we sought another
thing than religion, and so
ceased to assist us certain days
after that we were come to
Edinburgh." Knox, i. 419,
437.
The Eve of the Reformation. 219
riage had changed the current of the national
feeling ; and the soldiers and statesmen of France
unexpectedly found themselves regarded with
the jealous aversion and alarm which the Scots
had hitherto reserved for their nearest neigh-
bours. What between political discontent, and
the bitterness of religious discord, conciliation
became thenceforth a hopeless enterprise. The
Queen was compelled, by the imperious instinct
of self-preservation, to sanction a policy of re-
pression, a policy for which she had naturally
no taste, and to which she was driven against
her better judgment.
The mine had been carefully laid when,
in the spring of 1559, Knox again returned to
Scotland. To most eyes the future was dim
and clouded ; but one man at least knew what
he wanted. Knox had been bred in a school of
exact logic, and he had formulated the articles
of his revolutionary code with the scientific pre-
cision of his master. Think of him what we
may, the essential greatness of the great Ee-
former cannot be disputed. The simple elemental
forces of nature sometimes unveil themselves to
our eyes, and the Scottish iconoclast was one of
these forces. But Knox's intellect was construc-
tive as well as destructive. He had no rever-
ence, and he had no diffidence. He was willing
to make a tabula rasa of the past ; but then,
220 The Eve of the Reformation.
on the other hand, a quite original theory of the
universe a brand new scheme of doctrine and
discipline was ready, on a day's notice, to take
its place. The First Confession of Faith, in
which the whole plan of the Divine government
from the remotest eternity is explained with
transparent lucidity, was prepared in less than
a week. The facility with which he constructed
a speculative proposition has never been ex-
celled ; no timid respect for antiquity, for long
experience or inveterate custom, weakened the
invention of this audacious artist. One may
say, almost without exaggeration, that John
Knox was the Eeformation. It is extremely
doubtful whether, at any time during his life, the
majority of the Scottish nation was Protestant in
more than name. But the Eeformers were a com-
pact and resolute minority, led by a man who
never doubted that he held a Divine commission ;
whereas the mass of the people were indifferent
and inert. No one cared, apparently, to offer a
strenuous resistance to revolution. The priests
had lost heart as they had lost faith. " The
great men gaped after the Church estates, and
the commoners were fleshed with the spoils of
abbeys and religious houses." l
"John Knox was the Reformation," a fact
1 Lord Herries's Memoirs, p. 55.
The Eve of the Reformation. 221
which, as we shall find, meant much. It meant
that the moderate reformers in either Church
had been swept aside. It meant that the
"monuments of idolatry" had been violently
cast down. It meant that the Catholic tradi-
tion had been contemptuously discarded. It
meant, in short, that there had been a convul-
sion of nature, the hurricane and the earth-
quake, not the silent renovation and gentle pro-
cesses of the spring.
The growing exasperation of the contending
factions increased the difficulties of Maitland's
position. The Eegent, who had been forced,
much against her inclination, to become a par-
tisan, was now surrounded by French soldiers
and Romish priests. A Protestant Secretary of
State in such society was an anomaly, if not a
scandal. Maitland was sincerely attached to
the Queen, and he was naturally unwilling to
quit her service. She was ill and in peril ; shut
up within the walls of Leith, and exposed to all
the miseries of a siege. We do not know much
of the circumstances which at last forced him
to withdraw. Knox says that he came over to
the Lords a few days before All Hallow evin ;
and sometime in September he had intimated
to Sir James Croft that his departure was immi-
nent. He had probably waited on in the hope
that some reasonable terms of accord might be
222 The Eve of the Reformation.
devised ; and it was only when the annoyances
to which he was exposed became intolerable, that
he left. Modern historians have been rather in-
clined to suggest that he deserted and betrayed
the Queen. It was not in this light, however,
that his conduct was regarded by earlier writers
who were better acquainted with the circum-
stances than we can be. Both Knox and Cal-
derwood agree that Maitland was not only
" suspected " as one that favoured the Congre-
gation, but was actually in danger of his life.
He had "spared not to speak his conscience,"
" to utter his mind in controversies of religion,"
when the doctors of the Sorbonne, who had been
brought across from Paris to make an end of
heresy (a company or two of soldiers, as matters
then stood, would have proved a stronger argu-
ment), failed to convince him. Maitland, as
we know, had a sharp tongue and a ready wit ;
and the Sorbonne doctors were so annoyed, that,
in concert with the Bishop of Amiens, they
took what they probably regarded as more
effectual means to effect his conversion. "The
Bishop it was," according to Calderwood, 1
" that stirred up the French soldiers to kill
William Matlane of Lethington, because his
1 And also according to Bu-
chanan, from whose History
(chap, xvi.) Calderwood's ac-
count is obviously derived.
The Eve of the Reformation. 223
Sorbonne doctors could not refute him with suf-
ficient reasons in the conference with them."
" Which, perceived by the Secretary," Knox
adds, " he convoyed himself away in a morn-
ing and rendered himself to Maister Kirkaldie,
Lard of Grange," who had already joined the
Congregation.
Apart, however, from the irksomeness of life
in a beleaguered city, among unfriendly and
hostile critics, it is easy to understand why
Maitland, as a moderate Eeformer, should have
been anxious to regain his liberty of action.
The fanatical spirit which had taken possession
of the Congregation made him uneasy. The
leaders were losing control of their followers.
Anarchical forces, which threatened the very
foundations of society, had been recklessly liber-
ated. The religious saturnalia which followed
was alienating the prudent and frightening the
timid. Maitland had by this time perceived,
w r ith his intuitive and unfailing sagacity, that
/ *
the enterprise of the Eeformers could not be
successfully prosecuted without the help of
Elizabeth ; and the help of Elizabeth was not
to be had on such terms. The destructive
forces, if left to themselves, would leave only
a blackened ruin behind ; it was essential,
if any real advance was to be made if any
true progress was to be secured that they
224 The Eve of the Reformation.
should be directed and controlled by some
one who could enlist on behalf of social order
and a religious peace the temperate wisdom of
either nation.
Lethington was eagerly welcomed by the Lords
of the Congregation, of whom the Prior of St
Andrews, the Earls of Glencairn and Argyll, and
Kirkaldy of Grange, had been for some months
the actual, if not the nominal, leaders. John
Knox of course was with them ; and his sheer
force of character and impressive power of ap-
peal had been of the utmost service in keeping
them together. But there was no one among
them with a trained capacity for the conduct of
public affairs, and with the organising faculty
which is needed to give political coherence to
the irregular impulses of popular enthusiasm.
Maitland was the one man in Scotland at the
moment who could fill the place ; and the ad-
hesion of a young and daring, but astute and
far-seeing diplomatist one who had already,
moreover, been brought into close official rela-
tions with the English Government was an
enormous advantage. The personal fascination
which Maitland exercised over the English
c
Queen was now successfully exerted. Eliza-
beth's scruples were overcome, and Lord Grey,
with eight or ten thousand men-at-arms, was
sent across the Border.
Th e Eve of the Reformation. 225
One of the earlier and nobler actors here
passes from our story. Marie of Lorraine (she
was Marie of Lorraine by birth, Marie of Longue-
ville by marriage) had been for some time in
broken health ; the spirit was still high and in-
domitable, but the flesh was weak ; and early in
1560 it became generally known that the Queen
was dying. She lingered on for several months,
an occasional gleam of success lighting up
the gloom that yet gathered steadily round her
deathbed. While the French soldiers, protected
by nothing stronger than a " sand wall," as Nor-
folk contemptuously termed it (" it is shame to
lie so long at a sand wall " l ), still held the Eng-
lish army at bay, the Eegent had bidden farewell
to friend and foe. She died in the Castle of
Edinburgh the victim of a slow and wasting
malady far from her own people, far from her
native France a lonely and defeated woman.
She suffered for the sins of others, who left her
in a distant land to bear the heat and burden of
the day alone. But to the end her great quali-
ties asserted themselves, her sweet, generous,
and forgiving temper, her magnanimity and
breadth of view, her silent and patient heroism.
The end, long looked for, came at last, somewhat
suddenly. It was a painful and pathetic scene,
1 Norfolk, 27th April 1560.
VOL. I. P
226 The Eve of the Reformation.
which stirred the hearts of stern and ruthless
nobles, but of which Knox writes in his " merri-
est " vein. She had called one of his long-winded
denunciations a "pasquil," and he had never
forgotten the offence. The tortuous intrigues
and politic duplicities of the Minister of Right-
eousness may be forgiven by those who hold
that the end justifies the means ; but the sheer
inhumanity which Knox occasionally manifested
hardly, from any point of view, admits of pallia-
tion. The times were rough : it was a wild
society; yet among all its records of violence
and crime, no page is more revolting to the
modern student of morals than that on which
the Historian of the Reformation deliberately,
in cold blood, long after the event registers his
indecent triumph.
But I anticipate. Some of the incidents of
the eventful year when, in Pitscottie's phrase,
"began the uproar of religion," must be more
particularly noticed.
CHAPTEE SIX.
THE REVOLUTION.
greatest glory of a building is not in
-*- its stones nor in its gold. Its glory is
in its Age, and in that deep sense of voiceful-
ness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy,
nay, even of approval or condemnation, which
we feel in walls that have long been washed by
the passing waves of humanity. It is in their
lasting witness against men, in their quiet con-
trast with the transitional character of all things,
in the strength which, through the lapse of sea-
sons and times, and the decline and birth of
dynasties, and the changing of the face of the
earth, and of the limits of the sea, maintains its
sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable,
connects forgotten and following ages with each
other, and half constitutes the identity, as it
concentrates the sympathy, of nations ; it is in
that golden stain of time that we are to look for
the real light, and colour, and preciousness of
228 The Revolution.
architecture ; and it is not until a building has
assumed this character, till it has been intrusted
with the fame and hallowed by the deeds of
men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffer-
ing and its pillars rise out of the shadows of
death, that its existence, more lasting as it is
than that of the natural objects of the world
around it, can be gifted with even so much as
these possess of language and of life."
So far Mr Euskin.
Scotland was singularly rich in early master-
pieces of Christian art. Thirteen cathedrals, as
well as a vast number of churches attached to
the monastic establishments, had been erected
between Kirkwall and Whithorn, between lona
and St Andrews. Scotland might be the poorest
and rudest country in Europe, but its churches
were as spacious, as massive, as splendidly decor-
ated, as the temples of Italy or France ; and the
nation was justly proud of these noble buildings.
The medieval minster was not built in a day ;
the solid walls had been slowly raised while
generation after generation of pious worshippers
passed away like the leaves ; architect had suc-
ceeded architect each impressing his own per-
sonality, the genuine artistic feeling of his own
time, upon tower and column, upon arch and
buttress. The variety, the intricacy, the subtle
contrasts of the majestic pile, upon which, after
The Revolution. 229
so many years, the last carven stone had been
laid, could not but stir such feelings as are ex-
perienced in the presence of great natural mar-
vels ; for here too the hand of man had ceased
to be felt. The Cathedral of Elgin was " noble
and beautiful, the mirror of the land and the
fair glory of the realm " ; but the cathedrals of
St Andrews and Aberdeen, of Glasgow and Dun-
blane, were just as famous. In the Abbey of
Dunfermline "three sovereign princes with all
their retinue" could be lodged; yet Melrose,
Paisley, and Aberbrothick were, we are told,
second to none. The sound of the great bells
of Kirkwall could be heard across the stormy
firth by the dwellers on the mainland ; Chanonry
was the northern Wells, an architectural gem
of extraordinary purity and finish. Nor was
their impressive beauty of design and execution
their only title to regard. In a rude age, the
sanctity which attached to the monastic build-
ings served in a measure to protect them from
violence ; and they had become in course of time
the public museums and the public libraries,
where the most venerable relics the historical
records and title-deeds of the nation had been
deposited. Many of them, besides, had been
intimately associated with the most memorable
events in the national history. The Scottish
kings had been crowned at Scone ; they had
230 The Revolution.
been buried at Melrose and lona. Before the
high altar of Cambuskenneth the Scottish nobles
had sworn fealty to Bruce. There, too, the first
Scottish Parliament had been held. The Char-
terhouse of Perth had been founded by the
accomplished author of 'The King's Quair;'
Dunfermline was the shrine of the sainted Mar-
garet. On their internal decoration, moreover,
the wealth of priest and noble had been freely
spent. The sacramental vestments were marvels
of rich embroidery ; the most delicate art of the
workers in silver and gold had been lavished
upon the sacred vessels. Articles of priceless
value reliquaries, albs, chasubles, copes, cibories,
crosses, chandeliers, lamps, censers, organs, pic-
tures, statues had been ungrudgingly devoted
to the service of God. With much that was
meretricious and much that was puerile, it might
yet be said with confidence that in these august
sanctuaries of the medieval Catholicism, the
deepest and most imaginative expression of the
national life was to be found.
Knox landed at Leith on the second of May
1559 ; and within a month of his coming, many
of the noblest churches in Scotland had been
utterly wrecked. His progress was marked by
ruin and devastation; it was like the track of
an avenging angel. The zigzag of the light-
ning is not more destructive. From Perth to
The Revolution. 231
Cupar; from Cupar to Crail, St Andrews, and
Lindores ; then by Scone, Stirling, and Linlith-
gow to Edinburgh, the "fiery besom" which
had been seen in the sky, and which had pre-
saged ruin and disaster, swept across the land.
The slighter and more delicate fabrics were cast
down; when the time-stained, weather-beaten
mass of lichened stone rising like a natural
rock above the surrounding hovels successfully
defied pick and axe, crowbar and hammer, the
windows were smashed, the statues defaced, the
interior gutted. It cannot be said, perhaps,
that much was taken away, vandalism rejoices
rather in havoc than in spoil ; and on the fires
which they kindled with the precious wood
whereon the pains of hell and the glories of
paradise had been carved with untiring devotion
and illimitable industry, manuscripts of unknown
antiquity, missals illuminated by Flemish and
German artists, the registers of the church, the
records of the State, the sacred vestments, the
holy vessels, were indiscriminately heaped. A
blind rage and fury had taken possession of the
destroying army; and a handful of fanatics
on the march from Perth to Edinburgh, Spottis-
woode says, "they passed not three hundred
men in all" destroyed in a month the most
precious heirlooms of a people. Among the
churches that were wrecked or defaced while the
232 The Revolution.
iconoclastic fever lasted were those of St
Andrews, Edinburgh, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Dun-
fermline, Aberbrothick, Kelso, Kilwinning, Les-
mahagow, Lindores, Perth, Balmerino, Cupar,
Crossraguel, Paisley, Stirling, Cambuskenneth, St
Ninians, and Scone. It was pitiful wastefulness,
hardly to be justified by the plea that it was
only a reprisal, or by that other plea urged by
the reformers, " We, perceiving how Satan in
his members, the antichrist of our time, cruelly
doth rage," and resolute that no deceitful truce
be patched up with " dumb dogges and horned
bishops," here once and for all make any
terms of accord, which " politic heads " might de-
vise, now and in all time coming, impossible.
Knox arrived at Perth on the 10th of May,
and on the llth the devastation began. After
a sermon by the Reformer in St John's Church
" that thundering sermon against idolatry " a
priest, "to declare his malapert presumption,"
opened up a glorious tabernacle that stood upon
the high altar. Such a proceeding was, of
course, intolerable, and certain godly men who
had remained behind the rest had gone to
dinner having first stoned the priests, pro-
ceeded " to put hands to the said tabernacle, and
to all other monuments of idolatry." This they
did with such despatch that before the " rascal
multitude " had dined, the business was finished.
The Revolution. 233
The rascal multitude finding themselves antici-
pated at St John's, proceeded " without delibera-
tion " to the Black and Grey Friars, and then
to the Charterhouse, a building of " a wondrous
cost and greatness." Thereafter "the common
people began to seek some spoil" (which they
found in abundance such scandalous puncheons
of salt beef ! such sheets, blankets, and beds as
no Earl in Scotland had better !) ; but the earnest
professors sought only to abolish the places and
monuments of idolatry, in which they were so
busy and laborious that, within two days, only
the bare walls of these great religious founda-
tions remained.
At Crail, at Anstruther, and at St Andrews,
the Reformation repeated itself in exactly the
same fashion. Knox's sermon at Crail, in which
he invited his hearers either to die as men or to
live victorious, was followed by an attack upon the
church, the audience being so moved that they
immediately pulled down all the altars and
images in the town. At St Andrews, in like
manner, the discourse on the purgation of the
Temple being finished, the provost and bailies
did thereupon agree to remove all monuments of
idolatry, "which also they did with expedition."
The Cathedral Church was sacked, and the monas-
teries of the Black and Grey Friars razed to the
ground. The "reformation" of the monks of
234 TJie Revolution.
Lindores took place about the same time,
"their altars overthrown, their idols, vestments
of idolatry, and mass-books burnt in their ain
presence," to the great contentment of the Ee-
former. " that my heart could be thankful
for the super-excellent benefit of my God ! The
long thirst of my wretched heart is satisfied in
abundance ; for now forty days and more hath
my God used my tongue to the manifestation of
His glory."
Emboldened by the support they had received,
the Congregation, with Knox in their midst,
began their march upon Edinburgh. They
paused for a day at Perth, the scene of the
earliest reformation, and spent their leisure not
unprofitably. The Abbey and Palace of Scone,
the most venerable monuments in Scotland, were
within easy reach. By a curious fatality, the
rascal multitude, in spite of the restraint of
Knox's presence, were again in the mood for
mischief. " So was the Abbey and Palace ap-
pointed to saccage ; in the doing whereof they
took no long deliberation, but committed the
whole to the merciment of fire." At Stirling the
churches were purged, the monasteries wrecked,
the Abbey of Cambuskenneth cast down. The
like was done the third day after at Linlithgow.
At Edinburgh, where Lord Seton was provost,
" a man without God, without honesty, and often
The Revolution. 235
times without reason," some preparation had
been made for the protection and defence of the
monasteries ; but on the approach of the Congre-
gation Seton deserted his charge, leaving, as
Knox remarks, " the spoil to the poor, who had,"
he continues, " made havoc of all such things
as was moveable before our coming, and had left
nothing but bare walls, yea, not so much as door
or window ; wherethrough," he concludes, " we
were the less troubled in putting order to such
places."
It has been maintained that the Congregation
was not responsible for these excesses. Neither
Knox nor the Lords, it appears, were to blame,
the " rascal multitude," whom they were un-
able to control, being the real culprit. Though
it is true that the Eeformer professes on one
occasion to be ashamed of his followers, the plea
is not tenable, and cannot be admitted. The
connection between a sermon by Knox and an
act of destructive vandalism was as invariable
as a natural law. The devastation, indeed, was
the logical development of his policy of " Thor-
ough." If the nests were pulled down, the
rooks would not return. If the religious houses
were dismantled, if the churches were dese-
crated, if the monuments of idolatry were de-
faced, any risk of reconciliation with " the pes-
tilent prelates and their shavelings" would be
236 The Revolution.
averted. That was his policy, and it was the
policy which long after the occurrence of the
first violent outbreak of popular passion was
deliberately adopted by the responsible leaders of
the movement. The Charterhouse was sacked
on llth May 1559 ; the Act for the demolition of
cloisters and abbey churches was the work of the
Convention which met at Edinburgh in May
1561. The execution of the Act was intrusted
to the lay Lords ; and, while neither Argyll nor
the Prior of St Andrews can be accused of slack-
ness, the Earl of Glencairn, by the prompt
destruction of Paisley, Crossraguel, and Kilwin-
ning, appears to have secured the honours of the
day. The main incidents of the campaign of
1561 have been very vividly described by Spot-
tiswoode, " Thereupon ensued a pitiful vasta-
tion of churches and church-buildings throughout
all the parts of the realm ; for every one made
bold to put to their hands, the meaner sort imi-
tating the ensample of the greater and those who
were in authority. No difference was made, but
all the churches were either defaced or pulled
to the ground. The holy vessels, and whatever
else men could make gain of timber, lead, and
bells were put to sale. The very sepulchres of
the dead were not spared. The registers of the
church and bibliotheques were cast into the fire.
In a word, all was ruined ; and what had escaped
The Revolution. 237
in the time of the first tumult, did now under-
go the common calamity ; which was so much
the worse, that the violences committed at this
time were coloured with the warrant of public
authority."
The poverty of Protestant Scotland in sacred
buildings " whose walls have long been washed
by the passing waves of humanity " is sufficiently
accounted for by these deplorable incidents.
It has recently been urged, indeed, that not
only are ruins, and especially Gothic ruins,
fragrant with wallflower and mantled with
ivy, extremely attractive (as if Knox and his
followers in casting down churches had designed
merely to gratify the taste for the picturesque
which a later age might develop), but that the
ancient churches have suffered more from the
ignorant neglect of the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries than from the angry iconoclasm
of the sixteenth. The argument of course is in
one sense valid ; but in one sense only for it
must not be forgotten that the state of feeling
which allowed the minsters to crumble away
without remonstrance or remorse was directly
due to the teaching of the Keformers. The
stones in many cases may not have been
actually dislodged by Knox or Glencairn ; but
the people had been taught that these were the
synagogues of Satan in which "Baal's shaven
238 The Revolution.
sort " had practised their abominations ; and
the deserted building came to be regarded not
only with pious dislike but with superstitious
horror. The popular fancy associated the kirk-
yard where the "auld Papists" were buried
with the pranks of hobgoblins and the witches'
midnight revel : to the ploughman hurrying
along after dark with averted eye the place
became "uncanny"; and in course of time the
rank growth of thistles and nettles formed a
natural barrier which few cared to cross. Then
came the troopers of Cromwell, as destructive
in their grim deliberate fashion as Knox's
passionate vandals ; the wind blew, the rain
beat ; and now, one comely fragment, now,
another, came down with a crash which startled
the village. This is the history of more than
one of the vast edifices which yet later on, when
the lands round about were enclosed, served as
quarries for the farmers' dikes ; but if the devout
catholic sentiment, the profound feeling of awe
and reverence which the house of God inspired,
had not been wantonly disturbed, such a history
could not have been written. Some of the
preachers came to see that they had made an
enormous mistake ; Knox himself confessed, the
year before his death, that the barns and " sheep-
cots" for they were little better in which
public worship had been held since the demoli-
The Revolution. 239
tion of the abbeys, were scandalously unfit for
such a purpose.
To return. After the march on Edinburgh
there was a pause. The iconoclastic passion had
exhausted its first force; the wave had spent
itself. The Congregation could not maintain the
position it had taken, and was ultimately com-
pelled to fall back, the Hamiltons upon Glasgow,
Euthven and the others upon Stirling and Perth.
The Regent took advantage of the respite to
fortify Leith ; and Leith as a base of action for
her troops, as well as a city of refuge for herself,
was invaluable. The Protestant Lords, alarmed
by the rapidity with which the works were
pushed on, angrily demanded what she meant ?
Her answer was not wanting in dignity and
pathos. " And like as a small bird being pursued
will provide itself some nest, so her Grace could
do no less in case of pursuit, but provide some
sure retreat for herself and her company." Then
she spoke rather bitterly of their dealings with
the English Queen, their disloyalty to their
native sovereign. The Lords, however, were rude
and dogged ; they were not men to be touched
by any graces of style or felicity of appeal ; and
apprehending that the peril was imminent, they
again called their retainers to arms and advanced
on the capital. But after several weeks' skir-
mishing, having failed to make any impression
240 The Revolution.
upon the walls of Leith, they became dis-
heartened, their force melted away, and in spite
of a sermon from Knox and an earnest appeal
from Maitland (who had now joined them), they
determined to return to Stirling. They had
ventured some weeks before in a solemn as-
sembly to depose the Regent ; Knox had been
called in ; the Old Testament had been ransacked,
and the precedents duly considered. It appeared
that in deposing of princes, God did not always
use His immediate power, but sometimes used
other means which His wisdom thought good
and justice approved. "As by Asa He removed
Maacha his own mother from honour and author-
ity which before she had brooked ; by Jehu He
destroyed Joram and the whole posterity of
Achab ; by diverse others He had deposed from
authority those whom before He had established
by His own word." This daring act, this deliber-
ate defiance of the sovereign authority, had at
the moment been received with acclamation by
the citizens of Edinburgh : but the citizens of
Edinburgh were as fickle as they were fierce ;
and on the sixth of November the discredited
allies left the capital at midnight amid the gibes
and jeers of the inconstant populace. " The dis-
piteful tongues of the wicked railed upon us, call-
ing us traitors and heretics ; every ane provoked
other to cast stanes at us. One cried, ' Alas that
The Revolution. 241
I might see ! ' another ' Fye, advertise the
French, and we shall help them now to cut the
throats of these heretics.' So were the cogita-
tions of many hearts revealed. For we would
never have believed that our natural countrymen
and women could have wished our destruction so
unmercifully, and have so rejoiced in our adver-
sity. God move their hearts to repentance ! "
On this as on many other occasions, the Refor-
mers had to confess sorrowfully that " the hearts
of the people were against the professors." These
manifestations of popular disfavour were, to Knox
especially, peculiarly galling.
At Stirling Knox resumed the interrupted dis-
course ; the text was taken from the eightieth
Psalm : " God of hosts, turn us again ; make
Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved " ; and
the sermon itself rings like martial music. By its
stirring and piercing eloquence, its confident ap-
peal to the Eternal, " the minds of men began
wondrouslie to be erected " ; and at its close a
momentous resolution was taken, momentous to
Scotland, to England, to Europe. " In the end
it was concluded that William Maitland should
pass to London to expone our estate and condi-
tion to the Queen and Council."
Sadler was the stormy petrel of Scottish poli-
tics, and it was of evil omen that he was again at
Berwick. It was now November, and we have
VOL. I. Q
242 The Revolution.
seen (from the Eegent's letter) that during the
autumn months informal communications had
passed between the insurgent Lords and the
English Court. Cecil was eager to take advan-
tage of the opening; but Elizabeth hesitated.
The deposition of sovereigns by their subjects
was not at all to her taste. It might grow dan-
gerous if it became a habit, and the infection
spread. The moderate party in Scotland had
been overborne by the fanatical Calvinistic fac-
tion ; and, constitutionally cautious, she detested
fanaticism nearly as much as she detested Cal-
vinism. The Revolution so far had been the
handiwork of Knox ; and Knox she hated. The
Congregation had shown no capacity for political
organisation ; inflated with spiritual pride, they
had been arrogantly confident in prosperity, and
helplessly incapable in defeat. Were these the
allies on whose firmness and constancy she could
rely, these " men of butter," as Alva called
the Eeformers? But Cecil was urgent, and
Elizabeth, " greater than man, less than wo-
man," caring for her safety more than for her
scruples, never allowed her feminine antipathies
to override her masculine common-sense. Sad-
ler was the confidant of the English Council ;
and, with anxious instructions to deal warily, he
was despatched to Berwick to reconnoitre and
report.
The Revolution. 243
One initial difficulty presented itself With
whom was he to treat? What envoy from an
insurgent faction would be welcomed at Green-
wich or Westminster ? Knox was the real leader :
the Lords not being ready writers, he seems at
first to have conducted, under the nom de plume
of Sinclair (his mother's name), nearly the whole
correspondence, "in twenty-four hours I have
not four or five to natural rest, and ease of this
wicked carcass " ; but Knox was out of the ques-
tion. One sometimes wishes that Elizabeth and
Knox had met ; the interview, it cannot be
doubted, would have formed a lively, possibly a
stormy, episode in the History of the Eeformation.
The mere sound of his name drove Elizabeth
wild. The "Monstrous Regiment of Women"
was an unpardonable affront, which she had not
forgotten, and which she never forgave. He
had made a clumsy effort to apologise ; but an
apology from Knox was very like a sound rating
from another man ; and the maladroit letter
which he wrote judiciously suppressed by Cecil
would only have increased her choler. A
prophet charged to announce the judgment of
the Lord occupies a difficult position when he
has to own that he has made a mistake : and it
was hardly to be expected that a retreat in such
circumstances should have been graciously or
gracefully executed. When he told Cecil that,
244 Tlie Revolution.
" being overcome with iniquity" " a traitor to
God, and worthy of hell " " ye have followed
the world in the way of perdition, and shall
taste of the same cup that politic heads have
drunken before you," he did not mean to be
rude ; and Cecil, who could estimate prophetical
warnings at their true value, probably did not
mind. But when he was required to signify to his
haughty and passionate mistress that, although
" contrar to nature and without her deserving "
(seeing that she had " declined from Jesus Christ
in the day of His battle "), she had been raised
to the throne of England, yet if she would
confess that " the extraordinary dispensation of
God's great mercy had made that lawful to her
which both nature and God's law did deny unto
all women," her authority would be provision-
ally admitted, the prudent Minister felt that it
was time to interpose. Sadler was warned to
keep the truculent prophet well out of sight.
"Of all others, Knox's name, if it be not Good-
man's, is most odious here ; and therefore I wish
no mention of him hither;" 1 and Cecil's own
impatience with these ill - timed admonitions
1 This was written on the j good here." A more adroit
envoy was obviously needed ;
31st October ; on the 3d of No-
vember he returns to the sub-
ject, "Surely I like not Knox's
audacity. His writings do no
and at this very time Leth-
ington's services became avail-
able.
The Revolution. 245
found expression in a characteristic reply :
" Maister Knox, Maister Knox ! Non est mas-
culus neque foemina, omnes enim, ut ait Paulus,
unum sumus in Christo Jesu. Beneclictus vir
qui confidit in Domino ; et erit Dominus fiducia
ejus."
The adhesion of Maitland changed the whole
aspect of affairs. It gave ,the conduct of the
revolutionary movement to a skilled and trained
diplomatist; but it did more. So long as he
remained with the Regent, it might be taken as
an assurance that she had not broken with, or
been deserted by, the moderate reforming party.
When the Queen's Secretary, on the other hand,
went over to the rebels, it was a significant
declaration that French soldiers and foreign
ecclesiastics had rendered a policy of conciliation
hopeless. Maitland had no sympathy with
either extreme ; but he was forced to make his
choice. Practical statesmen cannot be unduly
finical. They must not cling with fastidious
tenacity to what they hold to be the best. In
this imperfect world it is seldom the best way
that succeeds only the second best ; and the
second best must be accepted as the line on
which social and political movement of any kind
is possible. Maitland, besides, was already, as
I have said, a familiar figure at the English
Court. He had acquired, or was to acquire, a
24G TJie Revolution.
personal ascendancy over Elizabeth which even
Cecil never possessed. Elizabeth bore with Cecil
because she could not help herself; but the
puritanic quality of his mind, and the puritanic
flavour of his speech, were always distasteful to
her, and she sneered irreverently at her faithful
Secretary and " his brothers in Christ." She
was a bit of a pagan, and so was Maitland ; and
the gallant address and gay wisdom of " the
flower of the wits of Scotland " were relished by
her to the last. Knox admits that in his mission
the Secretary " travailed with no less wisdom
and faithfulness than happy success " ; and the
Convention of Berwick an English fleet in the
Firth of Forth under Winter, an English army
before Leith under Lord Grey was the first
fruits of his diplomacy.
Enough has been written about the siege of
Leith and the Treaty of Edinburgh; yet it is
interesting to watch, from such a coign of vantage
as Sadler occupied during these anxious months,
the game that was being played ; and I may
briefly note some of the more striking incidents
recorded day by day in the voluminous cor-
respondence that has been preserved. Berwick
was the point on which the roads from New-
castle, Carlisle, and Edinburgh converged ; and
though lying close to the turbulent Border coun-
try, its strong English garrison, as well as the
The Revolution. 247
easy communication it enjoyed both, by land and
sea, alike with England and Scotland, made it a
place of the first importance, especially when
war was imminent, or intrigue rife. The dull
and peaceful life which Sadler and Norfolk
appear to have led while the negotiations with
Lethington were in progress contrasts curiously
with the organised anarchy which prevailed, and
the constant strife which was being waged, out-
side the walls. " It is more than thirty years
ago," Sadler wrote to Cecil, "since I had some
understanding of this frontier, and yet did I
never know it in such disorder; for now the
officer spoileth the thief, and the thief robbeth
the true man, and the true men take assurance
of the thieves that they shall not rob them, and
give them yearly rent and tribute for the same."
There was much complaint of the delay and
negligence of the "posts"; yet letters either
from the Council at London or from the Lords
at Stirling appear to have arrived daily. The
fortress of Berwick was built above the Tweed,
where the salt water mingles with the fresh, and
commanded a wide sweep of land and sea.
"This morning is past by here a great ship in
which it is supposed that the Frenchman is."
" I would to God ye had been more forward in
time. There is passed by here eleven sails in
sight, which we take to be French." " Hourly
248
The Revolution.
we look for the arrival of the ships." " This
day there is passed by here twenty-seven or
twenty-eight sail of ships ; we are in good hope
that it is the ordnance, which will much avail."
" Because the way and passage through Lothian
is very difficile, we have sent the Laird of Brun-
stone by Carlisle." "The treasure could not be
carried but in carts, for which the country serveth
not. This was in pence, two pence, and old
Testones. For God's sake send it in gold or
new silver." l These slight homely touches
serve to vitalise the scene ; we can see the
anxious envoys of Elizabeth in the chilly Border
town (" Our winds here being rather winter
winds than summer winds," Norfolk writes as
late as 15th May) watching the white sails of
the craft that crept along the coast, or the gleam
of the Border spears.
The spring of 1560 must have been unusually
late; but 1559 had also been a backward year.
On the 8th September Balnaves arrived at Ber-
wick, when it transpired that the Eeformers
had been hindered by the lateness of the har-
vest, as the destruction of the standing corn,
which could not have been avoided in the event
of a rising, would have turned the people against
them. Alexander Whitelaw followed on the
1 Letters from Sadler and
Norfolk, 27th Sept., 19th Dec.
1559, 7th Jan., 20th Jan., 18th
April, 27th April 1560.
The Revolution. 249
29th with the information that the Congregation
were unable to meet until 15th October, "they
could appoint no shorter day, as their harvest
by reason of foul weather is far behind, and not
a quarter done."
The interest of the winter and spring centred
in Maitland. His mission to England was re-
garded by Sadler and Norfolk, as well as by
Randolph and Cecil, as of supreme importance.
The Englishmen at Berwick had had, it must be
confessed, a difficult part to play. While solemn-
ly assuring the Regent that Elizabeth was her
very good friend, they were secretly to encourage
and succour the rebels. Arran was smuggled
across the Border with a forged passport pre-
pared by Cecil, in which he was described as
"M. de Beaufort, a gentleman of our good
brother the French King's, sent into Scotland
to our good sister the Queen Dowager." The
Congregation were told that they should " devise
such ways whereby they might be helped by us,
and yet we to remain in peace as we do " ;
Sadler was to lend them money secretly, taking
the bonds in his own name, " so that the Queen
should not be a party thereto " ; the money w r as
to be in French crowns, "for if it be in any
English coin, it will be the sooner suspected from
whom they have it." Despite of every precau-
tion the perfidy got wind, and Cecil had to warn
250 The Revolution.
his " brothers in Christ " to be more circumspect,
" of all others," he adds contemptuously, " of
all others, these Scots be the openest men that
be." But the harder the lying, the more unctuous
the language. " And so I take my leave, pray-
ing Almighty God to make you the instrument
of His true honour, against Anti-Christ, the per-
petual enemy of His dear Son, our Saviour
Christ." No writer of legitimate comedy could
have ventured upon so broad or farcical a
contrast ; and yet, as I have said before, the
men were perfectly sincere. It is difficult to
define with precision the moral and mental
characteristics of the duplicity which deceives
itself; but whatever term we may select to
designate their double-dealing, we cannot justly,
I think, call it hypocrisy.
It became obvious, however, before the winter
was far advanced, that the show of neutrality
could not be preserved much longer, and that
a decisive step one way or other would require
to be taken. So Lethington's movements were
closely scanned, and his coming eagerly awaited.
There were a number of false alarms. Eandolph,
writing on 9th November from Stirling, informed
Sadler that Maitland had received his despatch,
and would be at Berwick within eight days at
furthest. But a week passed and he did not
arrive. Sadler began to fancy that he had gone
The Revolution. 251
by the "West Marches, the Carlisle route, where
the Maxwells were strong, being then deemed
the safest. A few days later, however, he wrote
to Cecil that Lethington was certainly coming,
for whose secret conveyance to Court, by the
coast road, he would provide what was necessary.
" Things must rest awhile until you see what he
bringeth. The Lords wait for his answer." On
the 21st the envoy was still en route. " Leth-
ington and Kandolph will be here as soon as
wind and weather will serve. Nothing is known
till Lethington come, whom we look for hourly.
We shall send Captain Randall back in the boat
that brings him." On the 22d there is " con-
tinual expectation of Lethington's arrival " ; and
on the 23d " Lethington is still hourly looked
for ; he is supposed to be detained by the
Regent's death, of which the brute continueth.
The wind hath served so well, he should other-
wise have been here." Then in a letter from
Randolph the delay was explained, they had
been detained by Arran's sickness, who for four
days was " sore troubled " (whether it had
been bodily or mental "trouble" does not ap-
pear ; the taint of insanity may have begun to
show itself), and on the 24th they landed at Holy
Island. " On Thursday last, Lethington and
Randolph arrived at Holy Island, and when the
night came we received them secretly into the
252 The Revolution.
Castle here." Maitland, who frankly admitted
to Sadler that without an English army the
contest was hopeless, left for London before day-
break of the twenty-fifth.
The negotiations proceeded rapidly ; but Mait-
land's instructions were not sufficiently definite,
and Melville went back to Scotland to ascertain
the resolution of the Lords on certain points,
taking with him a letter from Maitland to Sad-
ler, the seal of which a serpent entwined round
a cross placed upon a skull, between the letters
E. P. is still unbroken. The Council, how-
ever, did not wait for Melville's return; Win-
ter's ships were in readiness, and on the twenty-
third of December the fleet sailed. Cecil was
unusually elated. " Our ships be on the seas,
God speed them ! God give you both good
night, for I am almost asleep (12 P.M.)" But
the wind was contrary. So late as the sixth of
January, there had been no tidings of them at
Berwick, and the rumour ran that they had
been driven back. " The messenger from the
Lords with the double of Lethington's articles
has arrived. He was eight days on the sea, and
could not land till yesternight, which he did at
Holy Island with much difficulty and danger.
No news of Mr Winter, which would be great
comfort." Winter in fact did not reach the
Forth till the afternoon of the twenty-second,
The Revolution. 253
when he had been four weeks at sea, even for
that age an unusually protracted voyage.
Lethington remained in London till the
middle of February, in constant communica-
tion with Cecil, whose confidence he entirely
gained. He had engaged to meet the English
and Scottish Commissioners at Berwick, and
he brought with him a cordial letter from
Elizabeth's Secretary. " Good Mr Sadler, you
have known this bearer, the Laird of Lethington,
but I here have had great profit of him, finding
him to be both wise, honest, and constant. I
pray you let him receive your friendly entertain-
ment, with some addition for my sake. God
send us a good end of your ministerial labours.
Time serveth all turns, and loss of time loseth
all good things." 1 Lethington was the first to
arrive. " Yesternight," Norfolk wrote on the
morning of the 24th, " arrived here the Laird of
Lethington, and at the same instant came also
the Master of Maxwell from Carlisle ; but the
rest of the Lords which come by sea are not yet
arrived, by reason that the winds are contrary."
1 Lethington had written to
Sadler from London on llth
January thanking him for his
services. " Ye have enterit my
haill nation in obligation to
you ; and I hope it shall prove
at length ye have also weill de-
servit of your awin country. I
look for the Queen's final answer
and my despatch to-morrow ;
quilk obtenin I will make speed
towards you. Cecil is writing.
I am in good hope."
254 The Revolution.
The letter, however, was not sealed when the
Scottish deputies appeared. " One of the Queen's
Majesty's ships named The Falcon is arrived
here in the haven-mouth with the Lord James
and the rest of the Lords of Scotland, for whom
we have presently sent out boats to bring them
to land." The Convention of Berwick was duly
signed and sealed, among the rest by " William
Maytlande of Lethingtoun, younger." Maitland
immediately returned to London, where he re-
mained for some weeks. " Because they require
certain promises under the great seal, they have
determined to send the Lord of Lydington to
be a humble suitor to her Grace. Surely we find
them grave and discreet men, unwilling to prom-
ise more than they can perform ; " and ready to
acknowledge that without English aid they were
unable to resist the French. About that there
could now be no doubt. It abundantly appears
from the report of the conferences that in
attempting to subvert the established govern-
ment and the established religion, the Congrega-
tion had undertaken a task beyond its strength.
Even against a considerable English army, the
handful of French made a gallant stand. " The
Scots can scale no walls ; " but on this occasion
the taunt might have been directed with equal
justice against their allies. The ill-success was
attributed to the incapacity of Lord Grey, who,
The Revolution. 255
it was insinuated, might lead a troop of horse,
but was not fit for so great a command. Nor-
folk, who was very sore at the miscarriage, and
who had expressed himself strongly against
the general's mistaken tactics in the conduct
of the siege, was forced to offer a doubtful
apology to his colleague: "Grey is nowise to
blame, except it be for that he has not his wits,
and memory faileth him."
The tenacity with which the French clung to
their rotten walls was quite unlocked for.
Elizabeth had expected a holiday promenade, an
easy " walk over " ; and it seemed now that the
enterprise might prove costly in more senses
than one. Conscientious were reinforced by par-
simonious scruples. She began to repent. She
had listened to evil counsels. Cecil's advice had
led her astray. Cecil, for his part, was not anxi-
ous to prolong a war which was hardly justified
by the usages of nations, and which, if prolonged,
might involve larger issues than he cared to
raise. If the French would leave the Scots to
settle their own affairs, the English army would
be withdrawn. The extreme men, the fanatical
visionaries who had dreams of a New Republic,
a Civitas Dei, a theocracy in Church and State,
inveighed bitterly against the terms of the
treaty ; but they were forced to give way.
Cecil himself came down to Edinburgh, where,
256 TJie Revolution.
with Maitland's assistance, he succeeded in
bringing the various factions to an accord.
The French Commissioners were reasonable
enough ; they even agreed to an article affecting
Mary's title to the English succession, which was
clearly outside their commission, and which was
subsequently the occasion of endless controversy ;
the impracticable preachers were the difficulty.
No official record of the claims they urged has
been preserved ; but it is plain that Cecil's pati-
ence was severely tried by their unreasonable-
ness. At one time he was almost tempted to
leave them to fight it out among themselves,
"we have to deal with so crooked and subtle a
nation," he exclaimed impatiently, unconsciously
repeating the words which Sadler had used twenty
years before. Some of the Lords, indeed, "to
the hazard of their lives and land," would listen
to reason ; but the preachers and the fanatical
leaders of the Congregation were stubborn as
mules. " I find the Lord of Lethington disposed
to work the minds of the nobility to anything
that your Majesty shall determine. He is of
most credit here for his wit " (or policy, as we
would say), " and almost sustaineth the whole
burden of government." " We find a great
commodity in the Lord James and the Lord
Lethington, who be well content to follow
our opinions in everything. Surely the Lord
The Revolution. 257
James is a gentleman of great worthiness." Two
days later the prospect had not brightened.
" Our travail, and especially mine, is more with
the Lords of Scotland than with the French. I
find some so deeply persuaded in the matter of
religion, as nothing can persuade them that may
appear to hinder it. My Lord of Lethington,
whose capacity and credit is worth six others,
helpeth much in this, or else surely I see folly
would hazard the whole." *
Maitland's moderation was all the more wel-
come, because he had at first been inclined to
hold that a premature and inconclusive peace
would be injurious. He had made Lady Cecil's
acquaintance when in London, and a close friend-
ship had sprung up between them. In more
than one letter to her the distrust of " communi-
cations " is forcibly accentuated. But he had
come to see that any violent disturbance of the
existing polity would be of doubtful advantage.
The Dowager's discernment had not been at fault
when she said that though the Congregation at
first did rise for matters of religion, they after-
wards shot at another mark ; and Balnaves can-
didly admitted to Sadler that the mark they shot
at was, as he phrased it, "an alteration of the
state and authority." Cecil, who in the privacy
1 Cecil, 19th, 23d, and 25th June 1560.
VOL. I. R
258 TJie Revolution.
of his study was ready to argue that the Crown
of England had a just and unfeigned title to the
superiority of Scotland, and that the French
Queen, as Queen of Scots, owed homage to the
Queen of England, was much too discreet to pro-
claim such a doctrine from the housetops. The
line that he took in public was to suggest that if
Mary declined to accept the reforms which were
proposed by the nobility, the government should
be intrusted to the next heirs ; and that if she
should refuse to recognise the Hamiltons, then
but I must use his own words " it is appar-
ent that Almighty God is pleased to transfer
from her the rule of the kingdom for the weal of
it," a rapid and daring feat of logic. But if it
came to be a conflict between the rival houses, there
could be little doubt Maitland must have felt
that the great majority of the people, the tempo-
rary irritation against France having subsided,
would prefer a Stuart to a Hamilton, the historic
family to the family of an upstart. If Elizabeth,
indeed, could have been persuaded to accept
Arran, an alliance which placed a Scottish noble
upon the English throne might have proved an
acceptable solution of the puzzle. But Maitland
knew that Arran was a violent half-witted lad
in whom the hereditary incapacity had developed
into specific mental disease ; and he knew, more-
over, that the shrewd Elizabeth rated him at his
The Revolution. 259
true value. Such a marriage would certainly
never take place ; and even as a marriage de
convenance, was hardly perhaps to be desired.
Then there was the Prior of St Andrews Mary's
brother who was supposed to aspire to the
Crown, and whose name at least had been includ-
ed in the list of possible claimants. Of the Lord
James we shall hear much hereafter ; here it is
enough to say that Margaret Erskine (who was
carried off by James the Fifth on the very morn-
ing of her marriage with Douglas of Lochleven
so the story ran) was alleged by some to be the
King's lawful wife. Maitland might possibly have
preferred the Lord James ; but, upon the whole,
he appears to have arrived at the conclusion that
a provisional government in Mary's name was in
the meantime the more prudent alternative, and
that, till public opinion was more matured, and
the public mind better informed, any fundamen-
tal alteration of the " state and authority " should
be delayed. Maitland was not an idealist ; for
him the visionary Republic had no attractions ;
but in the present mood of the populace it was
extremely probable that some grotesque scheme
of government might be adopted. It was better,
therefore, to wait ; and another consideration
may have had its weight. The Queen of France
could never be Queen of Scots ; she might keep
the name, but the power would remain with the
260 The Revolution.
Scottish executive council : on the other hand,
Francis was feeble and ailing ; and by-and-by
Mary might be able a free woman, no longer
entangled by foreign ties to return to her native
land.
The faction which had been eager for political
as well as religious change had, however, little
reason to complain. The French Commissioners,
indeed, would not meddle with "religion,"
dropping it like a hot potato, which was sure to
burn whoever touched it ; but they consented to
the meeting of a Parliament in which the needful
reforms might be deliberately considered. Of
this Parliament the advanced party gained, as
might indeed have been expected, complete con-
trol. The legality of its composition was open
to exception (the whole of the lesser gentry of
Fife and the Lothians attached to the Congrega-
tion were present in a compact body, an entire
innovation undoubtedly upon constitutional prac-
tice), and the Conservative party refrained from
any act of participation which could afterwards
be construed as an admission that it had been
lawfully summoned or was lawfully constituted.
The Earl of Athol, Lord Somerville, and Lord
Borthwick declared that they would believe as
their fathers had believed before them ; but, with
no formal protest, and with hardly a reclaiming
voice, the ancient Church was abolished.
The Revolution. 261
The Parliament was opened by Maitland, who
took the place which Huntly, conveniently de-
tained at home by "an infirmity in his leg,"
should have occupied. The address of the " har-
rangue-maker," as the Scots called the Speaker
of their Parliament, was modest and restrained.
" Silence being commanded, the Lord of Liding-
ton began his oration. He excused his insuffi-
ciency to occupy that place. He made a brief
discourse of things past, and of what necessity
men were forced to for the defence of their
country, what remedy and support it pleased
God to send them in the time of their necessity,
how much they were bound heartily to acknow-
ledge it and to requite it. He took away the
persuasion that was in many men's minds who
held back, and who wrongly supposed that other
things were meant than those that were at-
tempted. He advised the Estates to lay all
local affections aside, and to lend themselves
wholly to the true service of God and of their
country. He urged them to remember in what
state Scotland had been of long time for lack of
government and exercise of justice. He exhorted
them to mutual amity and hearty friendship,
and to live with one another as members of one
body. He prayed God long to maintain this
peace and amity between sovereign princes, and
especially betwixt the realms of England and
262 The Revolution.
Scotland in the fear of God ; and so ended."
The purpose of the speech was obvious : it was a
studiously moderate appeal to the moderate men
in either camp ; an appeal to the men of order
as against the men of anarchy ; an appeal to the
men of common-sense as against the men of
dreams and visions. Whether the proceedings
of the Parliament were in accord with Maitland's
real sentiments, we are not expressly informed.
He was well aware that a radical reconstruction of
the ecclesiastical polity would be demanded, and
so far as existing institutions were indefensible,
he was anxious that they should be radically
reformed. Beyond this he was not prepared to
go. A theocracy headed by Knox was just as
distasteful to him as a theocracy headed by
Beaton or Hamilton. It has sometimes oc-
curred to me that the expedient, by which the
preachers were diverted from the preparation of
a scheme of civil and ecclesiastical polity until
Parliament had been dissolved, was devised by
Maitland. For Christianity, as a system of doc-
trine, Lethington, it is plain, cared not at all.
He was not an unbeliever. In Scotland, in the
sixteenth century, the man who had ventured to
suggest, even tentatively, that God was a " bogle
of the nursery," would have been stoned to death.
But Maitland, who understood Knox's foibles, was
well aware that the preparation of a Confession of
The Revolution. 263
Faith, of a compendious manual of doctrinal theo-
logy, of a series of speculative propositions on the
relations between God and man, was a temptation
which the Reformers could not resist. It was a
duty which, on the slightest provocation, they
would " gladly undertake." There were no end
of ticklish practical questions requiring the most
delicate handling ; if, while these were in course
of solution, the preachers could be induced to
enter the thorny theological labyrinth, might it
not be well ? Might it not be attended with
advantage to all concerned ? That Maitland
attached no particular sanctity to the articles of
belief which were then formulated is clear enough ;
he was ready to throw them overboard without
even a pretence of reluctance : if Elizabeth, he
told Cecil, would only specify those that she
disliked (for a Calvinistic confession stank in her
nostrils), he would have them recast without
delay. Knox's Confession is a singular docu-
ment : weak and disingenuous when it attempts
to define the grounds on which an authoritative
Protestant creed can be constructed, " the
Notes by which the true Church is discerned
from the false," weak, that is to say, on the
logical and argumentative side, it rises into that
impressive eloquence, that intense emotional
fervour and force of spiritual expression, of which
Knox was a master, when it treats of the assur-
264 The Revolution.
ance of faith, of the immortality of the soul, of
the resurrection of the body. "In the general
judgment there shall be given to every man and
woman resurrection of the body. For the sea
shall give up her dead, the earth these that be
therein enclosed ; yea, the Eternal, our God, shall
stretch out His hand on the dust, and the dead
shall arise incorruptible, and that in the sub-
stance of the self-same flesh that every man now
beareth, to receive, according to their works,
glory or punishment. For such as now delight
in vanity, cruelty, filthiness, superstition, or
idolatry, shall be adjudged to the fire unquench-
able, in which they shall be tormented for ever,
as well in their own bodies as in their souls,
which now they give to serve the devil in all
abomination. But such as continue in welldoing
to the end, boldly professing the Lord Jesus,
we constantly believe that they shall receive
glory, honour, and immortality, to reign for
ever in life everlasting with Christ Jesus, to
whose glorified body all his elect shall be made
like, when he shall appear again in judgment,
and shall render up the kingdom to God his
Father, who then shall be, and ever shall remain,
in all things, God blessed for ever." This is the
poetry of theology : its science may be con-
temptible and incredible ; but the broad moral
truth that death is the wages of sin has never
The Revolution. 265
been more forcibly expressed or intensely real-
ised. Upon the whole, Maitland appears to have
done his best, where civil rights and civil inter-
ests were involved, to restrain the impetuous
fanaticism of the Assembly. He did not always
succeed ; it is difficult to believe, for instance,
that he approved of the Act which made the
celebration of the most solemn and indispensable
rite of the Catholic Church punishable with death.
A statute which provided that no persons should
say mass, or hear mass, or be present thereat,
under the pain of confiscation of their goods and
punishment of their bodies for the first fact,
banishment out of the realm for the second fact,
and death for the third fact, that was a statute
which Lethington certainly did not draw. It
was coined in another mint, it bears the un-
mistakable impress of another hand. It was the
work of the man who cast out " the monuments
of idolatry," and committed the abbeys to " the
merciment of the fire."
Even at this early period the friction between
Knox and Maitland, between the inspired pro-
phet of the Lord and the tolerant scholar of
the renaissance, had declared itself. Maitland's
irony had the same effect on Knox that the red
flag of a matador has on a bull. It was so deft,
so keen, so incisive, that it touched him before
he was aware. He manifests a quite unusual air
266 The Revolution.
of helplessness while this agile foe dances round
him, pricking him before and behind, on this
side and on that. He devotes a copious and
entirely original comminatory service to Mait-
land ; the mocker (he is prophetically assured)
will suffer for his " mockage," here and here-
after, in this world and in the next. I have
said that the Reformed preachers were extraor-
dinarily sensitive, resenting with more than
papal authoritativeness the most innocent bad-
inage directed against themselves or their office.
But Maitland's shafts went home. He was
not a jester only; the light play of his wit
masked serious conviction and deliberate policy.
Though the prophet who can interpret the ob-
scure oracles of the Most High is not as a rule
oppressed with humility, it cannot be said that
Knox was vainer than his brethren. It was no
doubt, however, rather mortifying to learn that
the Secretary of State, instead of being im-
pressed by the special and vehement applica-
tion of the prophet Haggeus, had shrugged his
shoulders, and treated the discourse with un-
disguised and unbecoming levity, " We mon
now forget ourselves, and bear the barrow to
build the houses of God " ; or to have been told
to his face that the Book of Discipline, the
scheme of Church government which had been
so anxiously prepared, was a " devout imagina-
The Revolution.
267
tion." It is clear that these speeches stung
Knox to the quick ; and the reason is plain. Had
they come from another man, they would have
meant little ; coming from a keen and liberal
thinker like Maitland, they were significant of
much. They were the first notes of adverse
criticism, the earliest intimation that the severe
ecclesiastical regimen which the Eeformers in-
tended to prescribe would not be accepted with-
out remonstrance, and that the affirmation of
their claim to bind and to loose on earth and in
heaven, as the Pope of Eome before them had
bound and loosed, would not be readily granted.
The Papal jurisdiction had been abolished be-
cause its spiritual pretensions had become in-
tolerable ; it is amusing, if rather saddening, to
reflect that the first business of the leaders of
the infant society was to construct an elaborate
form of excommunication. 1
1 These are the words of ex-
communication, After the of-
fender is cut off, secluded, and
excommunicated from the body
of Christ and the society of the
church, " And this his sin, by
virtue of our ministry we bind,
and pronounce the same to be
bound in heaven and earth.
We further give over into the
hands and ppwer of the devil
the said A B to the destruction
of his flesh ; straitly charging
all that profess the Lord Jesus,
to repute and to hold him ac-
cursed, and unworthy of the
familiar society of Christians ;
declaring unto all men that
such as hereafter, before his
repentance, shall haunt or fam-
iliarly accompany him are par-
takers of his impiety, and
subject to the like condem-
nation." A tolerably compre-
hensive " cursing " for a Church
six months old.
268 The Revolution.
The provisional settlement which had been
arrived at, the interim modus vivendi in politics
and religion, could not possibly have been per-
manent. What the future had in store for
Scotland, supposing that the French king had
lived, we can only conjecture. But all was
changed in a day by the death of the feeble
Francis. The Keformers made " merry " over
the sufferings of Mary Stuart's husband, as they
had made " merry " over the sufferings of Mary
Stuart's mother. " Lo ! the potent hand of God
from above sends unto us a wonderful and most
joyful deliverance ; for unhappy Francis, husband
to our sovereign, suddenly perisheth of a rotten
ear that deaf ear that never would hear the
truth of God." The exultation was premature ;
the merriment was short-lived. The death of
Francis restored the daughter of James the
Fifth to her own people ; and for the next ten
years the history of Scotland is the history of
Mary Stuart.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
MARY STUART AND ELIZABETH TUDOR.
rPHE legal status of Elizabeth Tudor was a
puzzling question which the astutest lawyer
would have failed to settle to his own satis-
faction. Was she the lawful daughter of Henry
VIIL, and therefore in right to the English
Crown ? or was she a bastard without any
rights whatever? Her wilful father, according
to his mood, had advocated either view, she
was legitimate or illegitimate, as it suited the
whim or policy of the moment. The Catholic
princes, indeed, were substantially agreed that,
on the death of Mary Tudor, the Scottish great-
granddaughter of Henry VII. was the rightful
heir ; but Elizabeth was now de facto, if not
de jure, Queen of England, and she had the
whole Protestant world at her back. The
assumption of the English arms by Mary was
an impolitic act, for which she invariably de-
clared that she was not responsible. The heralds
270 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
might argue that as by the rules of their craft
she was entitled as next heir to bear the arms,
the assumption did not imply any claim, direct
or indirect, to the crown during Elizabeth's life ;
and even the style of " Queen of England "
could hardly, with any show of logic or sense of
humour, be resented by the sovereign, who had
ventured to call herself " Queen of France."
But what at another time might have been dis-
regarded as frivolous technicality or petulant
tu quoque, became as matters stood a grave
political indiscretion ; Elizabeth was justified
in resenting it ; and if the Treaty of Edinburgh
had been confined to the settlement of a well-
grounded complaint, Mary could not have ob-
jected. But, as we shall find, it went much
further, and the article was so framed that it
might be construed (I confess that I do not see
how it can be read in any other sense) as an
absolute renunciation in all time coming even
in the event of Elizabeth dying without issue
of her right to the English succession. If
this was the concession which Cecil obtained by
" a brawling message " to the French commis-
sioners, he did not gain much in the end ; for
Mary quietly but persistently refused to confirm
a treaty by which her title had been thought-
lessly or fraudulently signed away.
I have now reached the point where the
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 271
struggle the long and bitter struggle between
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor may be said
to have begun.
The story I suppose we may venture to say
the immortal story of these women first took
literary shape before the close of Elizabeth's
reign. The unhappy Mary had been defeated
and defamed ; while round the triumphal chariot
of her rival the huzzas and hosannahs of a
grateful people welcomed "the good Queen
Bess." Spenser, and a greater than Spenser,
were in the throng ; and their voices, like the
pure notes of a great singer, rise above the con-
fused babble and inarticulate clamour of the
crowd. Eound Shakespeare the most gifted of
his contemporaries are like Liliputians round
Gulliver ; and we never realise how unique and
incredible he is till we place them side by side.
It is true, no doubt, that Spenser's portrait of
Mary Stuart is not in his best manner. The
contrast between the wise Mercilla and the false
Duessa is too much in the style of the early
painters, who strove to represent on one canvas
the joys of heaven and the pains of hell. The
lights as well as the shadows are too absolute
too Rembrandtesque ; the features of the one
are flattered, the features of the other are
blackened and distorted, till neither one nor
other is recognisable. On this hand we have
272 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
the peerless Mercilla, a maiden queen of high
renown, the heir of ancient royalties and mighty
conquerors, at whose feet kings and kaisers are
proud to sit, her sword the minister of divine
justice, her sceptre "the sacred pledge of peace
and clemency with which high God had blest
her happy land," who lets fall on her rival's
neck, not the sword of the executioner, but
" perling drops from her fair lamps of light,"
and who, when at length constrained to put her
to death, mourns for her with more than needful
natural remorse, and piously extends the last
sad honours to her wretched corse. On that
hand we have the false Duessa, who had
treacherously plotted against the merciful Mer-
cilla, who had wrought great and mickle mischief
unto many a knight, whose face was marred by
foul abuse and blotted by malignant passions,
who had been guilty of Sedition and Impiety, of
Incontinence and Murder. James the Sixth was
very angry at what he held to be a thinly veiled
insult to the memory of his mother ; but it was
hardly worth his while to complain as he did.
For it must be confessed that while there are
one or two impressive and imposing lines, the
arraignment as a whole is altogether unworthy
of the spiritual genius of Spenser in its higher
moods. It is the coarse and crude polemic of a
party scribe, a gross and intemperate caricature.
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 273
How immeasurably superior is Shakespeare !
How perfect the form, how suave the tone,
how mellow the light ! Courtly adulation never
wore a more fanciful dress, never offered a more
delicate worship :
"But I 'might see young Cupid's fiery dart
Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon.
And the imperial votaress passed on
In maiden meditation fancy free ; "
while the rebuke itself (the invective, if we
may call it invective) is almost as fine as the
flattery :
" Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music." 1
It is hardly necessary to say that the cult
of " the good Queen Bess " has long since died
out. From the moment that the State Papers
were made accessible to the public, its fate was
virtually sealed. No fervour of patriotism or
ardour of piety could replace the idol on the
pedestal from which it had been dislodged. It
was seen that the tears of the crocodile were less
false than these "perling drops." The maiden
Queen of high renown, the fair vestal throned
by the west, proved to be a woman who in
1 As early as 1567 we find j Bothwell as a hare. Facsimiles
Mary represented (in a rough ! of National MSS. of England,
caricature) as a mermaid, I Part III., No 63.
VOL. I. S
274 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
thought and deed was shamelessly unconscien-
tious, and in thought, if not in deed, shame-
lessly immodest. The wise and just Mercilla
swore like a trooper and lied like Lucifer. With-
out any charm of face or figure the imperial
votaress was vainer than a peacock. Mean,
avaricious, and mendacious ; hard, heartless, and
fickle, we see her now as she was ; and the
picture is not one on which it is pleasant to
look. But she had one supreme virtue she
succeeded ; and it is the strangest commentary
upon the confused political state of Europe at
the moment, when it can be said, and said with
apparent truth, that only such a woman could
have succeeded. If an honest, capable, clear-
sighted sovereign had occupied the English
throne during the years between 1560 and 1580,
it is possible, nay probable, that the English
Eeformation might have been nipped in the
bud. But there is a strength in folly as in
weakness ; and Elizabeth's folly was so incal-
culable that it disarmed the most cunning com-
binations, and baffled the maturest foresight.
Had there been a grain of honesty in her nature,
or of consistency in her convictions, the Spanish
fleet would not have sailed up the Channel twenty
years too late. To the end of her life she was
insincere with herself, and dishonest to all who
served her. There is a study in one of Con-
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 275
greve's plays for which the elderly Elizabeth
might have sat. It may be true that Congreve's
muse was often artificial and meretricious ; but
the picture of the godless old hag who kisses
her hand to her gallant with a coquettish giggle
while Death is lugging her away, who paints her
skinny and withered cheeks while she is toppling
over into the grave, is drawn by a master of
tragic comedy. In such ghastly coquetries the
last years of the woman who had braved the
Vatican and wrecked the Armada passed away.
It cannot be denied, however, that Elizabeth
could display on occasion the rough and hardy
vigour of the Tudor. If she swore like a trooper,
she was as insensible to physical fear or womanish
tremors ; slippery as an eel so long as slipperiness
would serve her turn, she stood her ground, when
forced to the wall, with the tenacious and well-
nigh heroic obstinacy of her race. Driven from
her last covert her mean trickeries, subterfuges,
mendacities, detected, exposed, no longer of any
avail she would turn savagely upon her pur-
suers, bidding them defiance with haughty port
and reckless tongue. She was absolutely with-
out conscience, and though perhaps not origin-
ally or intrinsically cruel, she had none of the
sensitiveness of a high-strung and generous tem-
perament. Thus she could be merciless without
wincing, and (except, perhaps, at the very last)
276 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
remorse did not hurt her. Irritable and intract-
able on the surface, subject to gusts of passion
that swept her off her feet, restrained by no large-
principles of duty either in religion or statecraft,
her mental patience was indomitable and almost
feline. With cat-like tenacity she clung, blindly,
instinctively, ungraciously, against her will, to
the line of policy more or less clearly defined
for her by Cecil which kept her on the English
throne.
But the Queen of Scots remains the central
figure.
The character of Mary Stuart is one of those
riddles which men will continue to read to the
end each in his own way. Where so many
learned doctors have differed, it would be pre-
sumptuous and impertinent to dogmatise. No
solution, it may be presumed, can now be alto-
gether adequate ; as the story proceeds, if every
incident is related with perfect fairness and
scrupulous accuracy, a more or less clear im-
pression of her unique personality may be gained
by the reader ; but it is idle to hope that all
difficulties can be smoothed away. Yet it ap-
pears to me, that while historians have not been
slow to evolve for our instruction from their
inner consciousness a consistent and more or
less logical theory of her character and career,
the direct testimony of contemporary observers
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 277
has been too much neglected. She was followed
from her cradle to the scaffold by curious and
critical eyes ; statesmen, poets, diplomatists have
recorded with eminent exactness, and sometimes
with picturesque vivacity, the impression she
produced upon them. It may be well in the
meantime to hear what these witnesses have
to say : by-and-by we may come to estimate
how far the evidence of the men and women
who saw her face to face verifies or invalidates
the speculations of the closet.
Sir Ralph Sadler had much to do with Mary's
later fortunes ; and it is from his letters, curi-
ously enough, that we get the first glimpse of
the baby Queen. Sadler was one of the men
who, by their industry, fidelity, and, it must
be added, unscrupulousness. rendered important
service to the English Government during the
later Tudor regime when such qualities were
urgently needed. The confidential servant of
Queen Elizabeth, the trusty agent of Cecil, was
sincerely attached to the principles of the Re-
formers ; but, like many of the Secretary's corre-
spondents, Sadler was a man of business as well
as a man of religion, and the business was not
unfrequently of a kind which a man of honour
w T ould have hesitated to undertake. The moral
obtuseness which enabled these statesmen to con-
278 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
duct the most questionable transactions without
any sense of discomfort would not appear so
singular to us, perhaps, had it been unaccom-
panied by unctuous fervour of language and
puritanic rigour of judgment. One is inclined
at first sight to conclude that the attitude of
mind which Sir Ralph's correspondence discloses
must have been more or less pharisaic. It was
not so the man was perfectly sincere ; but the
policy he was employed to forward being in
accordance, as he believed, with the will of
God and for the advancement of His kingdom,
he failed altogether to perceive that the end
did not sanctify the means. Absorbed in a
mission which involved the highest interests
of millions of human beings, in this world and
in the next, the immorality of the intrigue faded
out of sight. He perjured himself with a good
conscience. He lied with the unction of an
apostle.
Sadler had been in Scotland, as we have seen,
when James the Fifth was living, and he has left
us a lively picture of the King of the Commons
and his Court. James, having sown his wild oats
with ungrudging prodigality, was then leading
a tranquil and temperate life with Marie of Lor-
raine. The noble ladies who had been honoured,
or dishonoured, by the attentions of their king
Margaret Erskine, Elizabeth Carmichael, Eliza-
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 279
beth Shaw, Eupheme Elphinston had been
pensioned off or decently married ; and suffi-
cient provision, mainly taken from the revenues
of the Church, had been made for the offspring
of these fugitive amours. I have already had
occasion to refer to Sadler's first official visit to
Scotland, in connection with another chapter of
this history : here it is enough to say that
Henry's ambassador met with little success,
James refusing point-blank, as we have seen, to
suppress the religious houses, and to enrich the
Crown at their expense (after the English fashion)
as his uncle had advised. Within a few months
of James's death, Sadler was again at the Scottish
Court, engaged this time in a more doubtful
and dangerous venture. The advantages of an
English alliance would no doubt have been
appreciated in course of time by the Scottish
people ; but Henry's arrogance and impatience
were ruinous. Sadler was an able diplomatist ;
but even at his best he was no match for the
great Cardinal ; and on this occasion heavily
handicapped he was badly beaten. The nation
was in one of its sulky, irate, intractable moods ;
suspicious of England, suspicious of France ;
ready to pick a quarrel with the first comer,
and to resent any affront, however slight and
accidental, with more than ordinary warmth.
Henry's imperious and dictatorial manner was
280 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
not calculated to soothe these nervous suscepti-
bilities ; and thus, between his master's urgency,
the doubtful temper of the nobles who were
yet in the main friendly to England, and the
unacknowledged and impalpable but potent
pressure of the astutest statesman of the age,
Sadler was not happy. The widowed Queen was
living at Linlithgow, and it was in the royal
palace which her father had built that Sadler for
the first time saw Mary Stuart. The Dowager,
on her side, was suspiciously friendly and con-
fidential. The ambassador had been misled.
Arran, seeking Mary for his own son, was hostile
to the English alliance, whereas she and the
Cardinal were blameless.
It was the twenty - second of March 1543.
" And," quoth she, " the Governor said that the
child was not like to live ; but you shall see,"
quoth she, " whether he saith true or not " ; and
therewith she caused me to go with her to the
chamber where the child was, and showed her
unto me, and also caused the nurse to unwrap
her out of the clothes, that I might see her
naked. I assure your Majesty it is as goodly a
child as I have seen of her age, and as like to
live, with the grace of God." He saw her again
on the tenth of August. " The Queen told me
that her daughter did grow apace ; and soon,"
she said, "she would be a woman if she took
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 281
after her mother; who indeed is of the largest
stature of woman. And therewith she caused
also the child to be brought to me, to the in-
tent I might see her, assuring your Majesty that
she is a right fair and goodly child, as any that
I have seen for her age. And then after a little
time passed in the beholding of the child " they
finally parted.
The volumes of facsimiles, reproduced, by an
admirable method, from the most remarkable of
our historical manuscripts, are among the most
splendid ever printed in this country. Hidden
away in the libraries of wealthy book-hunters,
they have become rare and costly already ; by-
and-by they will be worth their weight in silver,
if not in gold. This is the reason, it may be,
why they are so seldom read, so little used. It
is a pity ; for they bring us into vital relations,
into curiously close contact, with the kings and
queens and scholars and statesmen who wrote
them. If a copy could be placed in each of our
public schools, and the teacher were able to say,
Here is a letter from Elizabeth ; here is a State
paper by Cecil ; this was written by John Knox,
that by Argyll, history would be vitalised.
Among the Scottish facsimiles, some of the
letters despatched from France when the Queen
of Scots was still a girl are full of interest. This
282 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
schoolgirl scrawl, for instance (the characters are
large and round, yet not unlike those with which
we are familiar from her later letters), comes
from Mary herself. It was addressed to the
Dowager -Queen on the occasion of her first
communion :
" MADAM, I am very glad to have the means
of writing to you my news, being in very great
pain from being so long without hearing any of
yours. Madam, I have heard that the Governor
has put himself at your will, and has restored
into your hands the principal places of the
kingdom, of which I am very glad, and every
day praise our Lord for it ; and also that all the
princes and great lords have returned unto you.
1 have come to Meudon to Madam, my grand-
mother, in order to keep the feast of Easter,
because she and my uncle Monsieur the Car-
dinal wish that I should take the sacrament.
I pray to God very humbly to give me grace,
that I may make a good beginning. I must not
forget to tell you that this bearer has done good
and acceptable service to the king.
" Here, Madam, I will present to you my
humble recommendations to your good favour,
beseeching the Creator to give you in continued
health a very happy life. Your very humble
and very obedient daughter, MARIE."
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 283
" Dieu, auquel je supplie tres humblement me
donner la grace d'i bien commancer." These
words were written about 1554, when Darnley
and Bothwell, and the Kirk o' Field and the
scaffold at Fotheringay, were yet in the far
distance. One is tempted to say, knowing
what we know now, that sadder words words
more pregnant with the keenest irony of con-
trast were never written. A good beginning !
God help her ! Had she no vision of the end ? l
From other letters belonging to the same period
(printed in these volumes), we gather that the
Queen of Hearts had already begun her career
of conquest. Thus, when she is seven years old,
her half-brother Francis of Orleans writes to
their mother : " I must not forget to tell you
that the little Queen of Scotland is found by
every one so engaging that the king is more
than content." " The Queen your daughter,"
Margaret of France, afterwards Duchess of Savoy,
remarks, ' ' the Queen your daughter improves so
much in every way that I cannot write enough
about her ; her honesty and goodness become
every day more marked." Anne d'Est, the
Princess of Ferrara, is even more enthusiastic :
" You have the best and prettiest little Queen
1 The contrast, too, between State, " En ma fin est mon
the words in this early letter commencement," is sufficient-
and the words on her cloth of 1 ly striking.
284 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
in the world ; her talk and carriage are so dis-
creet that we no longer think of or treat her as
a child." And a year or two later, on the eve
of her marriage to the Dauphin, Diane de Poic-
tiers confirms the impression of Mary's early tact
and reasonableness : " She spoke to the Scottish
deputies not as an inexperienced child, but as a
woman of age and knowledge : they will tell you
this when they return."
Eandolph was the English resident at the
Scottish Court during nearly the whole of Mary's
reign. Patient, diligent, assiduous, sagacious,
his letters are crowded with realistic touches
which have high merit, and display an unsus-
pected mimetic faculty. He seems to have used
the pen to clear, so to speak, his mental vision ;
he speculates revolving the pros and cons
while he writes ; the entire scope of an obscure
passage of intrigue will flash upon him, grow
luminous, just as he closes his letter. He lives
in his work, and the personages in whose for-
tunes he is absorbed, pass to and fro on his
pages with extraordinary vitality, sincerity, and
sprightliness. Not that it ever occurs to him
that he is an artist ; it is all in the way of
business only ; yet had Cecil employed a Shake-
speare he could hardly have secured a more
living picture of the Court and capital of Scot-
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 285
land. Both Mary and Lethington had a singu-
lar interest for him ; the more he saw of Mait-
land, the more he was impressed by his fine
intelligence, his profound capacity and persua-
sive force ; and the Queen, whom he had been
taught to distrust, fairly disarmed him. Her
frank address, her hardy simplicity, her sportive
badinage and gay banter, may have cloaked, as
we are now led to understand they did, the
subtlest state-craft ; but that was not the im-
pression they made upon this wary and watch-
ful observer at the time ; and the explanation
seems somewhat strained.
Randolph went with her on that progress to
Inverness which ended in the rout of Corrichie,
" a terrible journey both for horse and man,
the countries are so poor and the victuals so
scarce." There were apprehensions, too, about
the temper of the Gordons, the slightest mis-
adventure might have brought about an explo-
sion. But during all that anxious time, Mary
was as cool as the oldest soldier in her train.
"I never saw the Queen moved never dis-
mayed ; nor never thought I that stomach to
be in her that I find. She repented nothing,
but when the Lords and others at Inverness
came in the morning from the watch, that she
was not a man, to know what life it was to lie
all night in the fields, or to walk upon the
286 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
causeway with a jack and knapsack a Glasgow
buckler and a broadsword." * It was her habit
to sit in the Council Chamber at Holyrood
" sewing some work or other " (surely a pretty
feminine trait !) while the Lords deliberated, so
that if necessary she could take part in the
discussion ; and no duty of state was neglected
by her; but when she unbent she unbent wholly.
Kandolph tried on one occasion, when she was
enjoying a brief holiday at St Andrews, to in-
troduce some graver matter; but Mary would
not listen. " I see now well," she exclaimed
in that tone of banter which suited her so
well, " that you are weary of this company and
treatment. I sent for you to be merry, and
to see how like a bourgeois wife I live with my
1 Randolph's words recall
Knox's account of the high in-
trepid spirit displayed by Mary
when she swooped down upon
the rebel Lords during the Run-
about-Raid. " Soon after their
return to Glasgow, the King
and Queen were certainly ad-
vertised that the Lords were
passed to Edinburgh; and there-
fore caused immediately to warn
the whole army to pass with
them to Edinburgh the next
day, who, early in the morning,
long before the sun was risen,
began to march. But there
arose such a vehement tempest
of wind and rain from the
east, as the like had not been
seen before in a long time ; so
that a little brook turned in-
continent into a great river,
and the raging storm being in
their face, with great difficulty
went they forward : And albeit
the most part waxed weary,
yet the Queen's courage in-
creased man-like so much that
she was ever with the foremost.
There were divers persons
drowned that day in the water
of Carron." II. 500.
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 287
little troop, and you will interrupt our pastime
with your great and grave matters. I pray you,
sir, if you be weary here return home to Edin-
burgh, and keep your gravity and great embas-
sade until the Queen come thither, for, I assure
you, you shall not get her here, nor I know
not myself where she is gone. You see neither
cloth of estate, nor such appearance, that you
may think there is a Queen here, nor I would
not that you should think that I am she at St
Andrews that I was at Edinburgh. Go where
you will," she added, " very merry," " I care no
more for you."
Sir Francis Knollys, on finding how trouble-
some she could make herself, came to dislike
Mary ; but when she first flashed upon him in
her dishevelled beauty and stormy anger travel-
stained though she was by her long ride after
the Langside panic the puritanic veteran
warmed into unpremeditated welcome. When
we read the remarkable letters in which he de-
scribes the fugitive Queen, we cease to wonder at
the disquietude of Elizabeth ; a, glance, a smile,
a few cordial words, from such a woman might
have set all the northern counties in a blaze.
The cold and canny Scot, whose metaphysical
and theological ardour contrast so curiously with
his frugal common-sense, could stolidly resist
288 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
the charm ; but the Catholic nobles, the Border
chivalry, would have responded without a day's
delay to her summons.
" We found her," Sir Francis wrote to Eliza-
beth, " in her chamber of presence ready to re-
ceive us, when we declared unto her your High-
ness's sorrowfulness for her lamentable misad-
venture. We found her in her answers to have
. an eloquent tongue and a discreet head ; and it
seemeth by her doings she hath stout courage
and liberal heart adjoining thereto." Ten days
afterwards he continued to write in the same
strain. " This lady and princess is a notable
woman. She seemeth to regard no ceremoni-
ous honour besides the acknowledgment of her
estate royal. She showeth a disposition to speak
much, to be bold, to be pleasant, to be very
familiar. She showeth a great desire to be
revenged of her enemies. She shows a readi-
ness to expose herself to all perils in hope of
victory. She desires much to hear of hardiness
and valiancy, commending by name all approved
hardy men of her country, although they be her
enemies ; and she concealeth no cowardice even
in her friends. The thing she most thirsteth
after is victory ; and it seemeth to be indifferent
to her to have her enemies diminished either by
the sword of her friends, or by the liberal prom-
ises and rewards of her purse, or by division and
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 289
quarrels among themselves. So that for victory's
sake, pain and peril seem pleasant unto her ; and
in respect of victory, wealth and all things seem
to her contemptuous and vile. Now what is to be
done with such a lady and princess, and whether
such a lady and princess be to be nourished in
our bosom, or whether it be good to halt and
dissemble with such a lady, I refer to your
judgment. The plainest way is the most hon-
ourable in my opinion." Months pass away,
and his ardour does not abate. " She does not
dislike my plain dealing. Surely she is a rare
woman ; for as no flattery can lightly abuse her,
so no plain speech seemeth to offend her, if she
think the speaker thereof to be an honest man." *
When Cecil's friend, Mr White, was on his
road to Ireland in the spring of 1569, he
learned that Mary had been removed to Tutbury
Castle, and that by making a slight detour he
might be able to see the woman on whom, in
pity or aversion, all eyes were then turned.
White appears to have been a well-meaning but
vulgar busybody ; with little feeling of delicacy
or decency, and no sense of humour ; a dull, but
not incurious or unobservant man to whom
posterity indeed is really indebted ; for he con-
1 May 29, June 11, August 8, 1568.
VOL. I. T
290 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
trived to record his impressions of the captive
Queen with such unconscious sincerity and direct-
ness, that no better picture of Mary in her Eng-
lish prison has been preserved.
On his arrival Mary came out of the presence-
chamber and bade him welcome. After evening
service she talked with him from six to seven,
asking him to excuse her bad English. He told
her, with questionable courtesy (only the whole
letter was obviously meant for Elizabeth), that
she ought to be very thankful for such prince-
like entertainment. " And for my own part did
wish her Grace meekly to bow her head to God,
who hath put her into this school, to learn to
know Him to be above kings and princes of this
world ; with such other like speeches as time
and occasion then served ; which she very gently
accepted, and confessed that she had indeed great
cause to thank God for sparing of her, and great
cause also to thank her good sister for this kind-
ly using of her. As for contentation in this her
present estate she would not require at God's
hands, but only patience, which she humbly
prayed Him to give her. I asked her Grace,
since the weather did cut off all exercises abroad,
how she passed the time within ? She said that
all day she wrought with her needle, and that
the diversity of the colours made the work seem
less tedious, and continued so long at it till very
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 291
pain made her to give over ; and with that laid
her hand on her left side, and complained of
an old grief newly increased there. Upon this
occasion she entered into a pretty disputable
comparison between carving, painting, and work-
ing with the needle, affirming painting in her
opinion for the most commendable quality. I
answered her Grace I could skill of neither of
them, but that I had read ' Pictura ' to be
veritas falsa. With this she closed up her talk,
and, bidding me farewell, retired into her privy
chamber."
So the interview closed. Mary had obviously
had enough of his pedantic moralities ; and he
proceeds to record the impression which he had
received. " But if I (who in the sight of God
bear the Queen's majesty a natural love beside
my bounded duty) might give advice, there
should very few subjects in this land have access
to, or conference with, this lady. For beside
that she is a goodly personage (and yet in
truth not comparable to our Sovereign), she
hath withal an alluring grace, a pretty Scottish
speech, and a searching wit clouded with mild-
ness. Her hair of itself is black ; and yet Mr
Knollys told me that she wears hair of sundry
colours." Then he adds : " In looking upon her
cloth of estate, I noted this sentence embroid-
ered, En ma Jin est mon commencement which
292 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
is a riddle I understand not. My Lord of
Shrewsbury is very careful of his charge ; but
the Queen outwatches them all, for it is one
of the clock at least every night ere she go to
bed. The next morning I was up timely, and
viewing the seat of the house, which in my
opinion stands much like "Windsor, I espied two
halberd-men without the castle wall searching
underneath the Queen's bed-chamber window.
And so waiting an easterly wind I humbly
take my leave." 1
The scene at Jedburgh in 1566, when for sev-
eral days Mary was in extreme danger, appears
to have softened for the moment the bitterest
animosities. Even in articulo mortis, as it
seemed, the Queen was composed, courageous,
magnanimous. Twenty years afterwards the
end came, the scaffold, the block, the sword
of the executioner, the shame of a public death.
So environed, the stoutest heart might have
failed ; but Mary did not falter. " She herself
endured it (as we must all truly say that were
eyewitnesses) with great courage and show of
magnanimity." Thus Mr Marmaduke Darell on
"this present Thursday" (February 8, 1587
the day of her execution) wrote to Mr William
1 26th Feb. 1569.
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 293
Darell from " this Castle of Fotheringay." It
was simply pretence and artifice, we are now
asked to believe ; the great actress had reached
the crowning scene of the play, and her acting
was no doubt consummate. But the sick-bed at
Jedburgh was quite honest even Knox admits
as much. She was dying in an obscure Border
hamlet a scanty company, a mean stage yet
she bore herself with the same instinctive and
considerate magnanimity. Understanding that
death was near, she gathered the Lords about
her, and committed her son and her country to
their charge. " I seek not lang life in this
world," she is reported to have said, by one who
was present ; and then she added, " Ye know
also, my Lords, the favour that I have borne
unto you since my arriving in this realm, and
that I have pressed none of you that profess the
religion to a worship that your conscience does
not approve. I pray you also on your part not
to press them that makes profession of the auld
Catholic faith ; and if indeed you knew what it
is to a person in such extremity as I am, you
would never press them. I pray you, brother,"
she continued, turning to the Earl of Moray,
" that ye trouble nane." x This was the legacy
1 Queen Mary at Jedburgh in 1566. By John Small, F.S.A.
Scot. Edinburgh: 1881.
294 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
of peace and goodwill, of tolerance and charity,
that the dying Queen was leaving behind her.
Knox, in his account of the incident, uses very
nearly the same words : " Within a few days
after she took sickness in a most extreme man-
ner, for she lay two hours long coal dead, as it
were, without breath or any sign of life ; at
length she revived, and speaking very softly she
desired the Lords to pray for her to God. She
said the Creed in English, and desired my Lord
of Moray, if she should chance to depart, that he
would not be over-extreme to such as were of
her religion."
Out of these casual notices, written mostly on
the spur of the moment, and not intended for
publication, some more or less lively idea of
Mary, in her habit as she lived, may be gathered.
I am not prepared to say that they are unambig-
uous, or capable of being construed in one sense
only. But it rather appears to me that they are
not consistent with that view of her character
which has been lately presented to us by a mas-
ter of English prose, and which, as a masterpiece
of graphic art, has stamped itself upon the
popular imagination of our time. Some of us
may have seen on the walls of an old Scottish
mansion-house, not unknown to fame, the picture
of a girl in her first youth, attired in a demure
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 295
conventual habit. The heavy sombre dress em-
phasises the gay and delicate beauty of the face,
the peach-like bloom on the white cheek, the
covert smile that lurks between the tinted lips.
This, they say, is a portrait of the Queen ; but
in the old houses of the Scottish gentry nearly
every pretty face, to which no ancestral mem-
ories attach, purports to be a " Mary Stuart." *
Then there are portraits of her in more than one
European gallery, in which it is difficult to de-
tect any trace of the ingenuous girlish charm ; a
woman of a far different type, whose thin lips,
whose watchful eyes, are cruel and inscrutable as
Medea's. 2 This, or such as this, is the Mary that
Mr Froude sets before us. Her intellectual cool-
ness masks tropical passion ; her honeyed words
hide deadly poison. Sharp as steel, hard as ada-
mant, touched by no pity, hurt by no remorse,
with unflinching determination, with absolute
masterfulness, the murderer of Darnley, the boon-
companion of Bothwell, passes on to her evil end.
Somewhere between the two somewhere be-
tween the innocent and guileless girl and the
1 My impression is that the
little sketch to which I refer
was to be seen thirty or forty
years ago at Fyvie Castle. The
description, at least, is taken
from a note made about that
time.
2 The unpleasant " Sheffield
portrait," preserved at Hard-
wick Hall, is skilfully repro-
duced in Leader's 'Mary Queen
of Scots in Captivity.'
296 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
hard and treacherous woman, the true Mary
Stuart may perhaps be found.
It is not my purpose in the meantime to take
any part in the partisan controversy of which
" the daughter of debate " has been the exciting
cause. It appears to me, however (this much
may here be said), that only through a profound
misconception is it possible to discover conspicu-
ous political capacity in Mary Stuart. No words
of praise can be too high for many of her gifts.
But these gifts were not specifically intellectual.
The consummate statecraft with which she is
credited was not appreciated by her contem-
poraries ; the Machiavellian astuteness, the al-
most preternatural keenness of sight, readiness
of resource, tenacity of purpose, and singleness
of aim, are comparatively recent discoveries.
The woman that her contemporaries knew was
not one who, in Shakespearian phrase, " bears all
down with her brain" Knox indeed professed
to find in her a craft beyond her years ; but
Knox's judgments of womenkind (as I have had
occasion to show), were of little value. Had the
Queen been a Calvinist, he would have seen in
her " craft " true wisdom, and in her " hatred of
the word " pure religion. Mary Stuart had many
of the brilliant qualities of her race ; but she had
also their fatal defects. She lacked the coolness,
the self-control, the patience that becomes the
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 297
diplomatist. Her quick resentment was often
as imprudent as her prompt forgiveness. Her
impulsive anger sometimes undid in a day the
politic labour of months. Her keen contempt
for the pharisaic bearing and spiritual arrogance of
the " Congregation of Jesus Christ " found vent
sooner or later in rash and scornful words that
worked her bitter harm. She really desired to
stand well with the English Queen ; but her
cousin's mean duplicity and blundering craft
exhausted her patience ; and a biting jest or a
scornful laugh did more to exasperate Elizabeth
than the Darnley murder or the Bothwell mar-
riage. Neither her letters nor her poems are
above mediocrity. The style is sufficiently
graceful, but the sentiments are faded and
commonplace. Her State papers, indeed, are
remarkably able ; but then they were written
by Lethington ; and from the first Mary was
clever enough to recognise Maitland's consum-
mate ability, and real devotion to her service.
On the purely intellectual side, therefore, it
appears to me that Mary was mediocre, if not
weak ; but, as I have said, most of her other
gifts were beyond praise. She was the most beau-
tiful woman of her age, and the most beautiful
woman of her age must have found in her beauty
alone a force of attraction and command. Her
social charm was unrivalled, Knox even, and
298 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
Eandolph and Throckmorton, could not quite
resist "the enchantment whereby men are be-
witched." Something more, however, than social
charm or physical beauty was needed to make
her what she was, one of the half-dozen women
of the world who are not forgotten, nor like to
be forgotten. And " the strain of rareness " (to
borrow another phrase from Shakespeare) which
we fail to find in her intellect, we find in her
character. Her personal force was boundless ;
wherever we come directly in contact with her,
we are in contact with a rich and vivid " human-
ity." The words that have been used to describe
another remarkable woman are even more close-
ly applicable to Mary. " Throughout, as with
Rosalind, her royal descent is patent; like Or-
lando's mistress, she betrays her origin in a
hundred gallant and inspiring qualities the
quickness and brilliance of her blood, her ex-
quisite and abounding spirit, her delicate vigour
of temperament, her swiftness of perception, her
generous intensity of emotion." These are gifts
of the soul, emotional, not intellectual, or at
least only remotely intellectual ; and out of them,
when finely mixed, is wrought the " strong toil
of grace," the incommunicable feminine charm,
the je ne sais quoi on which the Frenchman
retreats when the subtle something eludes his
analysis, of which the little Queen had early
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 299
found the key. It may be that in Mary's nature
the bitter and the sweet were perversely mixed.
It may be that she was a cruel and crafty
coquette, who played with men's hearts and
lives as a cat plays with its mouse. On the
evidence beside us, however, it is difficult to
hold this view. So far as I can judge, the caress-
ing sweetness, the gracious and persuasive tact,
the broad human interest, the polished urbanity,
the flattering appreciation, the gaiety and the
pensiveness, were not borrowed, were not feigned.
Nature had generously dowered her. Mary
Stuart was one of the rare women who, in what-
ever station she is born, rules her world the
great world or the village green as if the talis-
man by which hearts are won had been given
her by a Fairy Godmother.
Whether Mary had any very keen sense of
right and wrong is another question on which
I do not enter here. Morality is a very wide
word ; it embraces pity, tenderness, fidelity,
unselfishness, as well as honesty, purity, tem-
perance, truthfulness, self-restraint. Whether
Mary's moral code included the severer virtues,
we shall see before the end comes ; but that she
was loyal to her convictions (such as they were)
and faithful to her friends, an indulgent mistress,
a generous though even-handed ruler, will, I
think, be generally admitted. Whether she was
300 Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.
more, or whether the cruel injustice, the bitter
persecution (as she regarded it) which clouded
her life, hurt the finer nature which God had
given her, the sequel will show. Only this need
be added, That for such a woman a woman
to whom the sense of freedom was as the breath
of her nostrils no more frightfully inhuman
punishment could have been devised than eigh-
teen years' imprisonment. We need not wonder
that Elizabeth's crowning blunder the scaffold
at Fotheringay should have been accepted with
more than stoical calm.
" A frightfully inhuman punishment ; " and
in this we find the conclusive answer to the plea
that the imprisoned Mary, in conspiring against
Elizabeth, was guilty of what Spenser calls " se-
dition." If Mary during her captivity plotted
against her jailer, who can blame her? Eliza-
beth, with her eyes open, chose to run the risk.
and she should have been ready to accept the
consequences. To take Mary's life because she
was a danger to the throne may have been pru-
dent and politic ; but to put her to death, because
by every possible means she strove to regain
her freedom, admits of no defence. To assume
that a woman like Mary would willingly consent
to wear her chains was simple infatuation. Eliza-
beth's astonishment at her guest's ingratitude
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. 301
was childish petulance or ridiculous pretence ;
she knew, or ought to have known, when she
elected to become her keeper, that it was thence-
forth war to the death ; and that in such a con-
test, no weapon of offence or defence would be
left untried.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE MINISTER OF MARY STUART.
TETHINGTON'S position on the death of
Francis became one of extreme difficulty.
It was probable that his alliance with the Con-
gregation would be resented by the daughter as
it had been resented by the mother. 1 He had
deserted the Dowager-Queen ; he had organised
the rebel government ; he had plotted with
Elizabeth and Cecil. Could he become the
minister, the confidential minister, of Mary
Stuart? All these embarrassing questions are
emphasised, are looked at from every possible
point of view, in the letters that he wrote during
the interval between the death of the French
king and the return of Mary.
1 That the Queen-Dowager
should have resented Mait-
land's defection with peculiar
bitterness, was quite natural.
" Ross, the Scottish herald, re-
ported that the Dowager was
very lenient, and would re-
ceive the Lords into favour, if
they put away young Lething-
ton and others by whom they
had been misled." Sadler,
15th November 1559.
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 303
The question was settled for him by the
Queen. She had felt from a very early period
that there was a substantial agreement between
herself and Maitland. " I understand the Queen
of Scotland hath hitherto no great devotion
to Maitland, Grange, and Balnaves ; whereof I
am nothing sorry," Throckmorton wrote from
Paris in spring ; but Throckmorton was wrong.
Even then Mary had made up her mind to win
Maitland. 1 She had seen him abroad probably
on more than one occasion ; at the time, no
doubt, little more than a lad, but gallant, san-
guine, ardent, intrepid. This was a man fit for
all adventures ; and in Lethington from the
very first she appears to have discovered a kin-
dred spirit. She was a Catholic, he was a
Calvinist ; he a simple gentleman, she the heir-
ess of an ancient monarchy and a long line
of kings ; the contrasts could be multiplied
indefinitely ; yet a true identity drew them to-
gether. Whatever their station, whatever their
creed, they were in character and temperament
children of the renaissance. Between Knox
and Maitland there could be no real union,
whereas the ties that bound Maitland to Mary
were of the closest kind. I am not blaming
1 Throckmorton adds in the i can to win them to her, which
same letter, " But she mindeth
to use all the best means she
she trusteth well to compass "
(May 1, 1561).
304 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
either Knox or Maitland ; it is not a matter for
praise or blame ; it is simply a matter of fact.
Knox was as ruthless as a prophet of Israel, as
narrow as a Spanish Inquisitor ; whereas Mait-
land and Mary belonged to the new world. In
their lack of moral fervour and ascetic intensity,
in their contempt for convention and conven-
tional standards, in their freedom from obsolete
prepossessions, in their directness, their frank-
ness, their urbanity, they represent the modern
spirit.
It has been asserted, indeed, that Mary re-
turned to Scotland with a purpose "fixed as
the stars " to undo the Eeformation. She was
a missionary of the Catholic Church, prepared,
at whatever cost, to bring back the flock which
had strayed into forbidden pastures, to the Roman
shepherd and the Apostolic fold. Her conversa-
tions with the English minister at Paris, prior to
her departure for the North, which have been
recorded with obvious fidelity, do not certainly
strengthen this view. It appears to me to be
clear that before these interviews took place,
Mary had resolved to follow the moderate coun-
sels with which Maitland's name was already
identified, steering a middle course between
the bitterness of Knox and the bitterness of
Huntly. "Well," quoth she, "I will be plain
with you. The religion which I profess, I take
TJie Minister of Mary Stuart. 305
to be most acceptable to God, and indeed neither
do I know, or desire to know, any other. Con-
stancy becometh all folks well, but none better
than Princes and such as have rule over realms,
and specially in matters of religion. For my
part, you may perceive that I am none of these
that will change their religion every year ; and
as I told you in the beginning, I mean to con-
strain none of my subjects, but should wish that
they are all as I am, and I trust they shall have
no support to constrain me." Such a plea for
liberty of conscience must have been as displeas-
ing to the one faction as to the other to the
fanatical Catholic as to the fanatical Calvinist.
It is urged, of course, that these declarations
were insincere and intended to deceive ; words
only, not deeds. But the fact remains that,
both before and after her return, Mary refused
to ally herself with the extreme factions, and
steadily resisted the pressure that was brought
to bear upon her from the rival camps. She
exerted her influence to procure a measure of
toleration for those who adhered to the ancient
Church ; and Knox complains bitterly that her
plea for the liberty of the conscience was urged
with some measure of success. " And in very
deed so it came to pass ; for the Queen's flattering
words, ever still crying, ' Conscience, conscience ;
it is a sore thing to constrain the conscience/
VOL. i. u
306 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
blinded all men." On the other hand, she de-
clined repeatedly and emphatically to ally her-
self with the enemies of the Eeformation. All
Scotland north of Dunkeld was at Huntly's
bidding; everywhere the Catholic Lords were
ready to join him ; and if Mary had accepted
the invitation which was conveyed to her by
Leslie to land at Aberdeen, and put herself
at the head of the Conservative reaction it is
possible that she might have swept the " Pro-
fessors " across the Border. My own opinion is,
that without the aid of Elizabeth (and Elizabeth
would hardly have cared to interpose at the
moment, the French being now fairly out of
the country, 1 and her previous venture having
been attended, as she thought, with such in-
different success), there was no force at the
disposal of the Congregation which could have
stayed her advance for a week. But she would
not listen to Leslie. She would have no more
war. She would accept the established order,
not unreservedly indeed, but in so far as it was
consistent with a prudent, moderate, and con-
ciliatory policy, " with quietness, peace, and civil
society." 2 The hearts of the people were to be
1 Small garrisons, indeed, still j rival she sent them back to
remained at Dunbar and Inch- France.
keith it was characteristic of 2 Proclamation of 25th Au-
Mary that directly on her ar- gust.
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 307
won ; and she had determined to win them.
" The Scottish Queen passed by sea into Scot-
land the 19th of this month. She hath no
soldiers nor train, and but a small household.
She meaneth to commit herself to the trust of
her own" l This was the information which Cecil
had received, and it was substantially correct.
Mary knew, however, that such an experiment
could not succeed if the leader of the moderate
party was hostile ; hence the importance which
she attached to Maitland's adhesion. Her
friendly advances were crowned with success.
Her frankness disarmed him ; his doubts and
scruples were removed ; and from the day of
her return till the day of his death, he re-
mained her trustiest, her most devoted, and her
most serviceable minister.
There is the ring of genuine feeling, of a high
and magnanimous nature, in the letter which
she addressed to him on the eve of her return.
She would gladly employ him in her service,
for she had no doubt of his goodwill. She
understood the scruples which he felt ; he had
been the diplomatic chief of the disaffected
Lords ; he had been in correspondence with
England and with Elizabeth. But she had for-
1 Cecil to Sussex, 21st Aug. position here to be at any new
1561. He adds, referring to charge, for that there appeared
Elizabeth, " I saw small dis- so hard fruit of the former."
308 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
given all past offences, and for the future she
would entirely trust him. She had always ap-
preciated his wisdom and sagacity, and she was
now confident of his affection and fidelity. Here-
after they would deal openly with each other.
He was not to fear what gossips and tale-bearers
might say ; such creatures had no credit with
her, she did not listen to calumny : she judged
her ministers by their actions, and by their zeal
and faithfulness in her service. 1
It was not, however, until Mary's personal
fascination was brought to bear, that Lething-
ton's doubts and scruples were entirely removed.
The policy of her return continued to be eagerly
canvassed with the English envoy ; and Ean-
dolph's narrative would rather incline us to
believe that up to the last moment Maitland
was desirous that she should be detained abroad.
" I have shown your Honour's letters," he wrote
to Cecil, " unto the Lord James, Lord Morton,
Lord Lethington : they wish, as your Honour
doth, that she might be stayed yet for a space ;
and if it were not for their obedience sake, some of
them care not though they never saw her face." 2
This is scarcely a fair representation of Mait-
land's view, which upon the whole was that of
1 29th June 1561, from Paris (French).
2 9th August 1561.
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 309
a patriot and a statesman. The existing " regi-
ment " was avowedly provisional, and experience
did not lead to any confident belief in its sta-
bility. It lacked all the elements of a strong
government ; antiquity, common consent, a clear
and definite policy. What continuity it had it
owed to Lethington himself, the whole burden
of administration having devolved upon him.
This was a condition of things which he justly
regarded with apprehension ; and after Mary
had been released by the death of Francis from
her French connection, he saw only one tolerable
issue, the return of the Queen of Scots to
Holyrood on certain specified conditions. Of
these the most important was the institution
of cordial relations between the two Queens,
so closely allied, and hitherto so bitterly divided.
If Mary could be induced to prefer the friend-
ship of England to the friendship of France,
all might yet be well ; and he believed that,
with delicate handling and judicious concession,
such a union could be effected. " Otherwise I
fear it shall be hard to do." 1 These were the
suggestions which he had sent to Cecil early in
the year; but Elizabeth's obstinate insistance
upon an untenable claim made it " hard to do."
The obstinacy of Elizabeth is not intelligible.
1 26th February 1561.
310 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
It was, as Lethington clearly saw, of the first
importance that Mary should be coaxed into
friendliness ; yet the English ministers made
themselves and their mistress as unpleasant to
her as they well could. They might be sure
that Mary would never renounce her right to
the English succession ; and even if they had
bullied her into ratifying the article which con-
tained the renunciation, what real advantage
would they have gained? A renunciation into
which she had been coerced, any renunciation,
in fact, obtained by fair means or foul, would
not, when the crisis arrived, have been worth
the paper on which it was written. Cecil, Bed-
ford, Throckmorton, were offensively peremp-
tory ; l but Mary's steady resistance could not
be overcome. She was as deftly courteous as
Lethington himself could have been ; but neither
threat nor entreaty moved her an inch. The
decision must be delayed till she returned to
Scotland ; then she would take the advice of
1 Although they were aware of heirs of Elizabeth's body " is
that Mary's construction of the j mooted as " a matter secretly
treaty as prejudicial to her thought of." See also Moray's
rights to the English succes-
sion was sound. This is tacitly
admitted by Cecil in his letter
of 14th July to Throckmorton,
when the possibility of an ac-
cord on the footing of admit-
ting Mary's interest " in default
letter of 6th August to Eliza-
beth, in which he says that
Mary will no doubt "think it
hard, being so nigh of the
blood of England, so to be
made a stranger to it."
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 311
her Council; nothing could be done till then.
This was not a very promising beginning ; but
Elizabeth, yielding to her imprudent and childish
resentment, continued to put herself still further
in the wrong. She refused to grant a safe-con-
duct to Mary, and she led the whole world to
believe, rightly or wrongly, that, but for the
accident of a fog,, the Scottish Queen would
have been the tenant of an English prison.
Mary was quick to profit by the blundering
diplomacy of England. "Monsieur 1'Ambas-
sadour," she said to Throckmorton, " it will be
thought very strange among all princes and
countries that the Queen your mistress should
first animate my subjects against me, and now,
being a widow, impeach my going into my own
country. If," she added afterwards, "my pre-
parations were not so far advanced, peradventure
your mistress's unkindness might stay my voy-
age ; but now I am determined to adventure
the matter, whatever come of it. I trust the
wind will be so favourable that I need not come
to the coast of England ; but if I do, your mis-
tress will have me in her hand, and if she be
so hard-hearted as to desire my end, she may
then do her pleasure. Peradventure that might
be better for me than to live. In this matter,"
quoth she, " God's will be done." 1
1 26th July 1561 (from Paris).
312 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
It is plain that Maitland was profoundly
chagrined by Cecil's clumsy tactics. Instead
of delicate handling and judicious concession,
there had been either unpardonable blundering,
or deliberate design to make a friendly accord
between the Queens impossible. His own safety
was compromised. " I pray you consider what
danger it is for me to write. Many men's eyes
look upon me ; my familiarity with your realm
is known, and so far misliked that, unless our
Queen be made favourable to England, it shall
be my undoing." 1 For him personally this was
bad enough ; but a far more serious danger was
to be apprehended. The peace of the realms
had been compromised. His letter of August
tenth is in this connection extremely instructive.
It is necessary, indeed, to read between the lines ;
for it is in substance, though not in form, a
strong remonstrance against the policy of exas-
peration on which Elizabeth was bent. " I do
also allow your opinion anent the Queen's jour-
ney to Scotland ; whose coming hither, if she be
enemy to the religion, and so affected towards
your realm as she yet appeareth, shall not fail
to raise wonderful trajedies." Though there
were many waverers, " yet I doubt not but the
best sort will constantly and stoutly bear out
1 26th February 1561.
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 313
that which they have begun." His own peril
was great, yet if it might be compassed that the
two Queens should be as dear friends as they
are tender cousins, then would he have as good
part in her good grace as any of his quality
in Scotland. " If this cannot be brought to
pass, then I see well it will be hard for me to
dwell in Eome and strive with the Pope." On
the whole, the Queen's return, though not with-
out many and evident dangers, was to be desired ;
" for what is not to be feared in a realm lacking
lawful government ? It is now more than two
years past that we have lived in a manner with-
out any regiment ; which, when I consider some-
times with myself, I marvel from whence doth
proceed the quietness which we presently enjoy,
the like whereof, I think, all the circumstances
being weighed, has not been seen in any realm."
There was no danger of a breach in the continu-
ance of the amity betwixt the realms so long
as Mary was absent; "and if all men were so
persuaded as I am, and did consider the conse-
quences which I foresee, little peril would be
after her coming : but her presence may alter
many things." In the brief note which he had
addressed to Cecil on the previous day, and which
had obviously been penned hurriedly on his
return from the North, he had urged indirectly
the same considerations. " There is nothing for
314 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
us so dangerous as temporising. Our country-
men's wits be best upon the sudden, and if
matters be trained in length, then lack of
charges killeth us. I can never change my
opinion that the good intelligence between
the realms can never be put in security unless
by some means the Queen my Sovereign may
be persuaded to enter into it." l The moods
which these letters disclose are, it must be con-
fessed, somewhat mixed ; but the same cannot
be said of that which followed. In the inter-
val Mary's messenger, Captain Anstruther, had
arrived at Edinburgh, bringing the alarming
intelligence that Elizabeth had practically de-
clared war against her cousin, and that an
English fleet, intended to intercept her, was
cruising off the Northumbrian coast. Lething-
ton's habitual courtesy to Cecil was sorely tried ;
the gross and indeed grotesque impolicy of the
proceeding almost took away his breath. His
worst anticipations were to be verified ; the
home-coming would now, without fail, raise
" wonderful trajedies." What was to be done ?
He wrote to Cecil the morning after Anstruther
had landed : " If two galleys may quietly pass,
I wish the passport had been liberally granted.
To what purpose should you open your pack
1 9th August 1561.
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 315
and sell none of your wares, or declare you
enemies to those whom you cannot punish ? It
passeth my dull capacity to conceive what this
sudden enterprise should mean. My wit is not
sufficient to give advice in so dangerous a cast
God maintain his cause and those that mean
uprightly. I pray you send me your advice
what is best to be done, as well in the common
cause as in my particular, who am held to be the
chief meddler and principal negotiator of all the
practices with your realm : though I be not in
greatest place, yet is not my danger least
especially when she shall come home, having so
lately received at your Queen's hands so great a
discourtesy as she will think." * Maitland was
right; the action of the English Government
had been perverse beyond belief ; they had done
precisely what he had all along warned them
against doing. The brutum fulmen was as im-
politic as it was stupid. " If two galleys may
quietly pass, I wish the passport had been
liberally granted." Four days afterwards Mary
landed at Leith ; and as Maitland had antici-
pated "her presence altered many things."
The Minister of Mary Stuart was now in his
thirty-third year a man comparatively youth-
ful, yet with a most varied experience ; and
1 15th August 1561.
316 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
some more complete estimate of his personal
qualities, of his striking individuality, than I
have yet been able to give, may here be at-
tempted. When this is done, the narrative of
the eventful years that were to follow need not
be again interrupted. Lethington had a good
deal of the magnetic force of his mistress; he
was a man eminently fitted to win and attract ;
yet while he was warmly loved by those whom
he loved, he inspired those who disliked and dis-
trusted him with an even keener aversion. When
trying to arrive at some tolerably just conclu-
sions about this remarkable man, we must look
on both sides of the picture, must weigh the
invective of Knox and Buchanan, as well as the
friendly testimony of Mary and Elizabeth, of
Cecil and Kirkaldy. All of them, indeed, at
one time or other, had expressed their admira-
tion of his political sagacity and administrative
genius ; but the position was so perplexing, and
the governing forces so complex and intricate,
that the parts of the actors were being con-
stantly recast. Out of the same fountain came
sweet water and bitter. The friend of to-day
was the foe to-morrow r . We must remember,
besides, that Maitland allied himself with a
cause that failed. Even in her own age there
were men who felt that a smile from Mary on
her scaffold was worth any star or ribbon that
Tlie Minister of Mary Stuart. 317
the prosperous Elizabeth could bestow ; but
these were the Quixotes at whom the world
laughs. The beaten men are always at a dis-
advantage ; the faction that wins commands the
machinery by which fame is dispensed, and hon-
our awarded, and truth suppressed ; and the poli-
tician who does not put his foot on his rival when
he is down is false to the traditions of his craft.
Lethington, besides, belongs to a class of men
who are not favourites with the multitude. Sim-
plicity of motive and action is demanded of the
popular hero. The subtilties of the moral life,
the baffling entanglements of the obscurer pas-
sions, are as little appreciated by children and
savages as the delicate gradations of colour.
Maitland, it need not be concealed, is one of the
difficulties of the historian. His record is not
clear. We are in the Debatable Land. The
temptation in such cases rather to cut than
to untie the ravelled knot is often irresistible.
Kirkaldy was a soldier whose transparent sin-
cerity of temper and heroic singleness of aim
could not be honestly misconstrued by the un-
friendliest critic ; whereas the pliant diplomacy
of Lethington (the bewildering tactics of a dar-
ing general) has been not uncommonly, even by
his friends, confounded with cynical dishonesty
or juggling craft. " What profit," Buchanan
asks with effective if bitter rhetoric, " what
318 TJie Minister of Mary Stuart.
profit shall the Queen gather of him that has
been (as she knows) so oftentime traitor to her
mother, to herself, to her son, to her brother,
and to her country?"
The charge of inconsistency is a charge which
a statesman is frequently, if "not invariably, en-
titled to disregard. The ship which beats up
channel against the wind, now on the one tack,
now on the other, cannot be accused of vacilla-
tion ; though it alters its course, it has still the
same goal in view, and is constantly nearing the
port for which it is bound. On the other hand,
the man who insists on knocking his head against
the stone wall which he cannot cross is stupid,
if not criminal. The perfidies of a selfish time-
server are of course inexcusable ; but a states-
man of the first rank must be judged less by his
actions than by his aims. Maryland's reply to
the accusation of inconsistency would probably
have been that, though he had been allied with
many factions, " the mark he constantly shot at "
had never varied ; and on the answer to the
question, What was the mark he shot at ? what
were his aims ? our estimate of the honesty or
dishonesty of his political career will ultimately
come to depend. We know, in point of fact, what
Lethington did say. In the correspondence with
Sussex, the pleas which he urged were discussed
in a curiously academic spirit ; but (assuming
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 319
that the facts were correctly stated) their validity
could not be disputed ; and they amounted to a
distinct declaration that, in spite of inevitable
oscillations of opinion, he had preserved from
first to last an essential consistency.
For more than a hundred years the coarse
daub which George Buchanan entitled ' Chamae-
leon' was held to be a fair, if not a flattering,
portrait. The chamaeleon, we are informed,
can imitate all colours, save only the white and
the red ; " white, quilk is taken to be the sym-
bol and token of simpleness and loyalty, and
red signifying manliness and heroical courage."
Such a creature, " subtle to draw out the secrets
of every man's mind," had recently been engen-
dered in Scotland, "in the county of Lothian,
not far from Haddington," and so on, and so
on, in the ponderous satirical fashion of the age.
It was rumoured at the time that Lethington
had been anxious to prevent the circulation of
the pamphlet (he had sent a company of his
men to arrest the printer, who barely managed
to escape) ; but the rumour is ill -authenticated,
and Maitland, who treated the persistent attacks
of the preachers with contemptuous indifference,
was not likely to trouble himself about a clumsy
and anonymous libel. 1 As the tract was written
1 In Bannatyne's Journal of | 14th April 1571, it is said
320 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
during 1570, when the tide of factious feeling
was running high and strong, Buchanan's real
estimate of Maitland's character is probably to
be looked for elsewhere. In his History that
"story of Scotland" on which he was engaged
at the time (purging it, as he told Cecil, of
"English lies and Scottish vanity") he praised
the Secretary with unusual warmth. Maitland
had rendered signal service to his country ; he
was "a young man of the most consummate
ability, and of great learning." Kichard Banna-
tyne's Journal, though more honest and less
rhetorical, is even more intemperate than the
'Chamseleon.' Maitland is the "Mitchell Wylie" 1
of Scotland, the most persuasive and insidious
of political casuists. This sneering Mephistoph-
eles, this evil spirit in human form, is potent
for mischief. As clay in the hands of the potter,
so are Huntly, and Chatelherault, and Grange,
and Hume in the hands of " their great god, the
Secretaire." " God confound his malitious and
" This night at evin, about house with sic things as he
eleven hours, Captain Melville feared stild have hurt him gif
came unto Robert Lepreviks's
house and sought him (as he
had done twice before), and
looketh all the house for the
they had been gottin." There
were probably a good many of
these " things," as all the
broadsheets against the Queen
' Cameleone,' which the Secre- \ and her party came from Lepre-
taire fearit that he had prentit ; viks's press.
but he, being warned before, ' 1 Machiavelli.
escapet, and went out of his
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 321
politicke heade ! " is the pious petition with
which "gude godly Mr Kichard" rounds off
his reminiscences. In one sense, of course, no
higher testimony to Maitland's abilities could
be offered ; it is clear that by the enemies of the
Queen he was feared even more than he was
hated.
It is from Buchanan's * Chamseleon ' and Ban-
natyne's Journal that the "Lethington" of the
later historians has been derived. While admit-
ting that his talents as a statesman were of the
highest order, they ask us to believe that his
policy was " too artificial and technically subtle,"
as though he had been a speculative student
whose principles of action had been evolved from
his inner consciousness, and who had never come
into close contact with his fellows, a judgment
which, as I shall have occasion to show, is very
wide, indeed, of the mark. The extraordinary
excellence of Principal Robertson's historical
writings has not of late been sufficiently recog-
nised; and the brief page that he devotes to
Lethington is expressed with admirable lucidity.
Yet even Robertson's estimate was coloured by
the " Mitchell Wylie " tradition. " Maitland had
early applied to public business admirable nat-
ural talents, improved by an acquaintance with
the liberal arts ; and at a time of life when his
countrymen of the same age were following the
VOL. I. X
322 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
pleasures of the chase, or serving as adventurers
in the armies of France, he was admitted into all
the secrets of the Cabinet, and put upon a level
with persons of the most consummate experience
in the management of affairs. He possessed, in an
eminent degree, that intrepid spirit which delights
in pursuing bold designs, and was no less mas-
ter of that political dexterity which is necessary
for carrying them on with success. But these
qualities were deeply tinctured with the neigh-
bouring vices. His address sometimes degener-
ated into cunning ; his acuteness bordered upon
excess ; his invention, over-fertile, suggested to
him on some occasions chimerical schemes of
policy too refined for the genius of his age and
country ; and his enterprising spirit engaged
him in projects vast and splendid, but beyond
his utmost power to execute." How far this
estimate of his public career is sound and just,
how far it rests upon a palpable and radical
misconception, will appear in the course of the
narrative. Meantime such personal traits as
have been preserved may be brought together.
The two qualities of Maitland's intellect which
most impressed his contemporaries were his ex-
traordinary insight and his extraordinary per-
suasiveness. He was, according to Buchanan,
" subtle to draw out the secrets of every man's
mind." The gift of reading the thoughts of those
The Minister of Manj Stuart. 323
with whom he was brought into even casual
contact, a faculty intuitive and instinctive, yet
capable of being highly cultivated, and of course
invaluable to the diplomatist, appears to have
belonged to Lethington in a quite unusual de-
gree. It is associated by Buchanan with the
imitative capacity which the chamaeleon pos-
sesses ; and if by imitation we understand the
intellectual sympathy which is the finest form
of flattery, the explanation may probably be ac-
cepted. And of Lethington it could be said more
truly than of almost any other man then living,
that he " could wile the bird off the tree." Kude
nobles, austere zealots, crafty diplomatists, were
as wax in his hands ; they could as little resist
that " fell tongue " as the mariners of Ulysses-
could resist the songs of the Sirens. I have
already spoken of his personal ascendancy over
Elizabeth. " I wish you were here," Leslie wrote
to him from London, when a very delicate
negotiation was in progress ; " you could well
have handled the Queen of England after her
humour, as you were wont to do." " I think
there be some enchantment whereby men are
bewitched," was written of Mary ; but it might
have been written of Mary's minister. Cecil's
" brothers in Christ " came latterly to re-
gard him with a sort of superstitious dread ;
there was something sinister and " uncanny "
324 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
about this potent wizard which turned his ad-
versaries' weapons and weakened their guard.
He made even the sturdy and unsusceptible
Eandolph uneasy ; the English envoy looked
forward, for instance, to the conference at Ber-
wick, in which he was to be pitted against him,
with almost ludicrous apprehension. "What
is in the Laird of Lethington, your Majesty
knoweth, for his wisdom to conceive, and his wit
to convey, whatsoever his mind is bent unto
to bring to pass. I doubt not but his will is to
press us to the uttermost. To meet with such
a match your Majesty knoweth what wit had
been fit ; how far he exceedeth the compass of
one or two heads that can guide a queen and
govern a whole realm alone ! your Majesty may
well think how unfit I am for my part, and how
far he is able to go beyond me. I would that it
were not as I know it to be." l
Lethington was not only a versatile and many-
sided man ; but we find in him, moreover, a
combination of qualities that are rarely united.
On the one side he is keen, supple, pliant, dex-
terous, adroit ; on the other, strong, resolute,
constant, fearless. Brilliant but erratic, was the
1 Kandolph to Elizabeth, 7th ' they shall not find among
Nov. 1564. Eandolph writes j themselves so fit a man to serve
elsewhere : " Whenever Leth- ' in this realm " (24th October
ington is taken out of his place, i 1561).
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 325
popular verdict ; the fact being, as we shall see,
that he adhered to his convictions with singular
tenacity, and that the basis of his character was
an eminent common-sense. He had indeed, as
is obvious, the most profound confidence in his
own powers : nor was his confidence without
warrant; for he had measured himself against
the most famous of his contemporaries, and he
knew that he was as strong as the best of them.
And he delighted in the delicate and difficult
game he had to play he was a tireless swimmer
whose energies never flagged. Yet though he
had the keenest enjoyment in the consciousness
of intellectual supremacy, and an almost scorn-
ful reliance on the completeness of his own
mental equipment, he was never rude, arrogant,
or aggressive. 1 His self-restraint was perfect.
Much of the charm of his manner, much of the
attractiveness of his character, may be traced, no
doubt, to the native urbanity which did not fail
him even when disease and evil fortune had
done their worst. He was perennially gay, deft,
1 Throckmorton (21st July
1567) gives us a lively notion
of Lethington's mode of parry-
ing a difficult question. " When
I had perused this writing de-
livered me by the Lord of
Leddington, I asked him how
far these words, Necessity of their
cause in the end of the same,
did extend, and how far they
might be led? He made me
none other answer, but, shaking
his head, said, ' Vous estes ung
renard' (i.e., You are a very
fox)."
326 Tfie Minister of Mary Stuart.
incisive. And he had a light hand ; he did
his work with surprising ease neatly, cleanly,
promptly, adroitly without effort and without
strain. A simple gentleman by birth, he was
for many years, like Disraeli, the trusted leader
of the great nobles. Like Disraeli too, like
many politicians similarly gifted, he has been
accused of levity and unconscientiousness. If
we are required to admit that, with a touch of
what would now be called the Bohemian in his
nature, he manifested scant respect for pious
custom and decent convention (though even
this much of positive accusation is barely war-
ranted by any well -ascertained facts), it may
fairly be answered that the frank cynicism of a
Maitland or Disraeli does infinitely less harm to
society than pharisaic cant or sentimental in-
sincerity. The political leader who saps the
morals of the people and debauches the pub-
lic conscience is, in the words of the Poet-
laureate, the " rogue in grain, veneered with
sanctimonious theory," the sophist, the shuffler,
and the trickster. There was a wide gulf in-
deed between Maitland and most of the men by
whom he was surrounded. " The Lord James
dealeth according to his nature, rudely, homely,
and bluntly; the Laird of Lethington more
delicately and finely ; " l and the contrast
1 Randolph to Cecil, 24th Oct. 1561.
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 327
between Maitland and Knox was still more
marked. Nothing more futile and grotesque
than Knox's application of the precedents of Old
Testament history to the problems of modern
life can well be imagined ; and this Lethington
was quick to perceive. Interminable disquisitions
on Achas, Urias, and the sons of Zeruiah were
answered by a shrug of the shoulder or a curl of
the lip. Page upon page of prolix argument and
laborious trifling (even Calderwood admits that
Knox was "prolix") were rendered of no avail
by a keen epigram or a timely jest. The
preachers inveighed against the "guydars of the
Court " ; but Maitland, though he could wear
the cap and bells on occasion, was a political
reasoner of the highest order ; and an admirable
common -sense gave strength and substance to
the "mockage" that Knox so deeply resented.
Nor can it be said with justice that he was
politically more unscrupulous or " immoral "
than the other statesmen of the age. That he
made at least one fatal mistake, that on more
than one occasion he miscalculated the strength
of the forces with which he had to reckon, is not
to be denied ; yet his political sagacity was
seldom at fault. If he had no high spiritual
aims, and little patience with hysterical piety
and intemperate zeal, he was at least entirely
sane, and his unambitious gospel is the gospel
of common-sense.
328 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
During several of the eventful years over
which this history extends, Maitland was the
spokesman of the Scottish people ; and men of
all parties were proud of his wit, his gaiety, his
readiness, his epigrammatic force. He was a
trenchant orator : and his rapidly written letters,
of which many have been preserved, are fresh
and animated. They have a literary flavour
which we seldom find in State papers and pub-
lic despatches ; and the illustrations with which
he enforces his arguments are derived from the
most varied sources. " I pray you," he writes
to Cecil with reference to the succession, " that
the Queen's Majesty may know my opinion, and
this withal : Multa cadunt inter calicem supre-
maque labra. In things uncertain which do
depend a futuro eventu, more frankness may be
used to put our estate in security and quietness.
I think you have heard the apologue of the
philosopher who, for the emperor's pleasure,
took upon him to make a mule speak. In
many years the like may yet be either the
mule, the philosopher, or the emperor may die
before the time be fully run out." l In another
letter he advises his correspondent to read " the
twa former orations of Demosthenes called Olyn-
thiacse," and consider what counsel that wise
1 9th August 1561.
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 329
orator gave in a like case to the Athenians his
countrymen. " There may ye learn of him what
advice is to be followed when your neighbour's
house is on fire." l He warns Throckmorton that
French gold is coming into the country, and that
the Scottish nobles are extremely impecunious.
" I remember," he adds, " an old verse of Chaucer
' with empty hand men should no hawkis
lure' sapienta pauca." 2 The whole of the
curious correspondence with Sussex, in which
the morality of his conduct and the consistency
of his policy are forcibly vindicated, sparkles with
classical innuendo and learned repartee. Eliza-
beth declared that Sussex had the best of the
argument ; he had worsted " the flower of the
wits of Scotland " : but Elizabeth on that occa-
sion was a partial witness. The Catholic bishops
complained, with perfect justice, that Maitland
had " a crafty head and a fell tongue." 3 Many
of his mots have become historical ; and he was
probably one of the men who speak better than
they write ; but though the style is sometimes
involved and the allusions obscure, his letters
are on the whole extremely interesting.
1 20th January 1560. Eob-
ertson says that this letter is by
Maitland ; the compiler of the
Cottonian Catalogue inclines
apparently to attribute it to
Knox.
2 10th June 1561.
3 " Fell " in the sense of art-
ful or persuasive.
330 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
The best testimony, however, to the peculiar
attractiveness of Lethington's character, is to be
found in the devotion of his friends. The sweet-
ness of a finely balanced nature was even more
winning than its intellectual force. The satirists
of the Congregation laboured hard to account
for the fascination ; but their theories were dis-
cordant and inadequate. Now it was " Machia-
velli " ; now it was the Old Serpent, who tempt-
ed Eve in Eden, and who, for some inscrutable
reason, had been permitted to return to trouble
the people of the Lord. The affectionate interest
with which the smallest details of his domestic
life were regarded, has preserved many slight
but characteristic traits which would otherwise
have been lost. Envoys and diplomatists turned
aside from affairs of State to record the progress
of his flirtation with Mary Fleming. Mary
Fleming was the flower of the Marys. She was
the Queen's favourite maid. After the Chastelar
incident they occupied the same room and slept
in the same bed ; at the innocent merrymakings
of a pleasant, homely, uncourtly life, against
which Knox inveighed as though they had been
the midnight orgies of a Messalina, the Queen
would deck her out in her own robes and jewels. 1
1 Mary Fleming indeed had illegimate daughter of James
the royal Stuart blood in her IV. by Isobel Stewart, daughter
veins, she was the grand- ! of the Earl of Buchan.
daughter of Janet Stuart, the \
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 331
Maitland's first wife Janet Menteith was dead,
and he fell in love with the fair daughter of Lord
Fleming. His passion was the talk of the town.
There was much jesting among the courtiers
many humorous gibes from friend and foe. " The
Secretary's wife is dead," Kirkaldy wrote, " and
he is a suitor for Mary Fleming, who is as
meet for him as the writer is to be a page."
Later on we learn that Maitland was expected to
join the Lennox faction, " for the love he beareth
to Mary Fleming." Kandolph in especial made
very merry at his friend's expense. " My old
friend Lethington hath leisure to make love ; and
in the end, I believe, as wise as he is, he wilTshow
himself a very fool, and stark staring mad." But
Maitland took the badinage in good part, and a
letter which he sent to Cecil at the time, is writ-
ten in riotous spirits and with almost boyish
abandon. The anxious minister of Queen Eliza-
beth, whose devotion to business is so pleasantly
censured, must have been somewhat astonished
when he found this letter upon his table among
his graver despatches. He had of late Mait-
land wrote been somewhat perplexed, under-
standing that Cecil was sick, the rather that he
could not ascertain whether it was the cough
which universally did reign, or other more dan-
gerous disease, that troubled him. He was glad
to hear that he was better, but would not be fully
332 Hie Minister of Mary Stuart.
reassured until lie had a letter from him written
with his own hand. " I am not tarn cupidus
rerum novarum, that I desire any change ; and
if my fortune should lead me to England again,
I wish not to have occasion to make any new
acquaintance." The English minister was not
faultless, and reformation at his age was hardly
to be looked for ; but though he did not like
Cecil much, he might like his successor still less !
" Therefore, however far I mislike you, I wish
you to do well to yourself, and suffer neither the
evil weather nor the evil world to kill you. As
there are in you many good parts which I miss
in myself, so I find in me one great virtue where-
of, for your commodity, I wish you a portion ;
to wit, the common affairs do never so much
trouble me, but that at least I have one merry
hour of the four-and-twenty ; whereas you labour
continually without intermission, nothing con-
sidering that the body, yea, and the mind also,
must sometime have recreation, or else they can-
not long last. Such physic as I do minister for
myself, I appoint for you. Marry ! you may per-
haps reply that, as now the world doth go with
me, my body is better disposed to digest such
than yours is (for those that are in love are ever
set upon a merry pin !) ; yet I take this to be a
most sovereign remedy for all diseases in all per-
sons. You see how I abuse my leisure, and do
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 333
trouble your occupations with matters of so light
moment. It is not for lack of a more grave sub-
ject ; but that I purposely forbear it not know-
ing in what sort I may touch it and avoid offence.
I will, with better devotion, look for other matter
in your next letter, than for any answer to this
foolish letter of mine except indeed to be adver-
tised of your convalescence. You can impart
those news to none that will be more glad of
them. Like as, if you will command anything
that lieth in my power conveniently to do, you
will find none, next your son, over whom you
have more authority. And so, after my most
hearty commendations, I take my leave. From
Edinburgh the last of February 1564, 1 yours at
command, W. MAITLAND."
In fine, Maitland's was one of the governing
minds of the age in which he lived. The num-
1 That is, 1565. Lething-
ton's reckoning was of course
different from ours. The Ju-
lian style, which was then about
ten days behind the true time,
was universal throughout West-
ern Europe till Pope Gregory
XIII.'s correction of the calen-
dar in 1582 ; and the change
from 25th March to 1st Jan-
uary (adopted in France in
1564) was not made in Scot-
land till 1600, nor in England
till 1752. The letter which
Lethington dates " the last of
February 1564," was, according
to our present reckoning, writ-
ten on llth March 1565. It is
unnecessary to alter the days of
the months ; but, to avoid con-
fusion, it is best to adhere uni-
formly to 1st January as the
beginning of the year.
334 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
ber of such men at any particular period is as
a rule extremely limited much more so than
is commonly supposed. I am inclined to hold
that, at the period of which I am writing, there
were not above three or four men of distinctly
original and creative force in the whole island,
from John-o'-Groats to the Land's End. In
England they had Cecil ; in Scotland, John
Knox and William Maitland. Cecil's " brothers
in Christ" the envoys and emissaries of the
English Government were men of a specifically
inferior order, who derived their inspiration
from their master, and who, when deprived of
his guidance, of the habitual support of his
cautious but fertile brain, showed themselves,
almost without exception, extraordinarily help-
less. Cecil was partly to blame, no doubt, his
industry was so prodigious that he monopolised
the whole business of administration, and his
subordinates, having no opportunity of acquir-
ing the rudiments of the art, were, when left to
their own resources, unmanned by the unwonted
sense of responsibility. There are eminent writ-
ers who would be prepared to place the Earl of
Moray beside Knox and Maitland and Cecil.
It appears to me that Moray belongs to another
class altogether, the class of men whose mental
processes are slow, involved, and dependent.
It was a common saying later on, when he came
The Minister of Mary Stuart. 335
to be Regent, that Moray was the hand and
Morton the head ; and during the earlier and
brighter years of Mary's reign, it might have
been said quite as truly with even greater
truth indeed that if Moray was the hand, Mait-
land was the head. The radical energy, the
illuminating force, came from Maitland ; and we
do not, I think, meet with any other man in
Scotland at the time Knox, and perhaps Mor-
ton, excepted who possessed the high and rare
gift of ruling men in so marked and eminent a
degree.
I have said that a statesman in Lethington's
position must be judged less by his actions than
by his aims. What were his aims ? We shall
see, as we proceed, that they involved the de-
termination of political and religious questions
of the first importance. How to diminish the
power of an anarchical nobility, hoiv to promote
the union of the nations, how to secure the succes-
sion to a Scottish prince, how to establish a reli-
gious peace on tolerable conditions these were
the problems to which, as a Scottish Protestant
and a Scottish patriot, Maitland addressed him-
self ; and it will be found, I believe, that the sec-
ular and ecclesiastical policy which he steadily
and consistently pursued, was upon the whole
as just as it was reasonable. His field of action
was comparatively narrow ; but the issues of the
336 The Minister of Mary Stuart.
conflict in which he was engaged were moment-
ous and far-reaching. He knew that they were
so ; and the spirit in which he worked was
largely affected by the knowledge. " Remem-
ber, the end of this service is not as many other
wars have been ; this will serve our posterity ;
and therefore bestow your knowledge and travel.
And though the journey have many difficulties,
yet is it more honerable being hardly obtained.
Fare you well, and speed you."
END OF VOLUME ONE.
PRIXTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AXD SOXS.
PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION.
MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON
AND
THE SCOTLAND OF MARY STUART.
BOOKS II. AND III.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. I. MAITLAND AND KNOX.
CHAP. II. MAITLAND AND CECIL.
CHAP. III. THE COURT OF MARY STUART.
CHAP. IV. CONSPIRACIES OF THE NOBLES COR-
EICHIE TO CARBERRY.
CHAP. V. THE FALL OF MARY STUART.
CHAP. VI. MAITLAND AT YORK THE CASKET
LETTERS.
CHAP. VII. MAITLAND AND MORAY.
CHAP. VIII. THE DOUGLAS WARS MAITLAND AND
SUSSEX.
CHAP. IX. SIEGE OF EDINBURGH CASTLE AND
DEATH OF MAITLAND.
APPENDIX OF NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CON-
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