XIX.-MARY STUART AND THE

REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND.

When James V. lay dying of a broken heart, news was brought to him that his queen had given birth to a daughter. James groaned; he had hoped Mary Queen for a son to continue the direct line of his of Scots. house, and now this last hope was taken away. "It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass”, were his sad words. Soon after he died, leaving the little princess of a few days old as his successor. princess was Mary Queen of Scots.

This

Schemes.

The position reminds us of a similar state of affairs more than two hundred and fifty years before, when the Maid of Norway was left heiress to the Scottish crown. Once again English policy turned to the idea of a marriage. Henry VIII. wished to English marry his son, Edward VI., to Mary, and Marriage after his death Somerset the Protector held to the same plan. Yet both of them tried to gain their object in the most foolish way possible, namely, by violence. Henry sent a force which landed at Leith and burnt Edinburgh, but the Scots took their revenge by utterly overthrowing another army of the English at Ancrum Moor. Somerset was as unwise as his master, He sent an army under Lord Grey to invade Scotland. Grey met the Scottish forces at Pinkie, and in spite of the heroic resistance of the Scottish pikemen, at last defeated them by his superiority in firearms. The Scots were furious. Huntly well expressed the feelings of the nation when he told Somerset "he had no objection to the match, but to the manner of the wooing". Mary was sent for safety

to France, where she afterwards married Francis, son of the French king.

Before this, however, the Reformation in Scotland had begun. As in England, the printing of Bibles Reformation increased the number of those who began in Scotland. to think that both the government and the teaching of the Church was wrong. The Scottish Parliament gave all men leave to study the Scriptures in their own tongue; in consequence, we are told that "the Bible might be seen lying on almost every gentleman's table, the New Testament was carried about in many men's hands".

Cardinal Beaton, the head of the Church party, decided to make an example. He chose George Wishart, who had made himself known by Wishart. his fearless preaching against the Church. First a priest tried to murder Wishart, but the preacher snatched from him the dagger hidden under his gown. Soon after Wishart was arrested, and condemned to be burnt as a heretic. Cardinal Beaton looked on from a window in his castle of St. Andrews while the deed was done.

Wishart's friends determined on revenge. They stole into the castle, stabbed Beaton, and hanged his Murder of body from the very window at which Cardinal Beaton. he had gloated over Wishart's death. Then they defended the castle against the regent's forces, and some time passed before they were overcome. Most of them were punished by being sent to the French galleys. There was, however, one amongst them, who, while tugging at his oar as a galley-slave, never lost the hope that he might be permitted to return to his country and carry on the work of the Reformation in the spirit of his dead friend Wishart. This was John Knox. It

Knox.

was not till some years later, however, that he was released.

Meantime the cause of Protestantism in Scotland was in grave danger. Mary of Guise, Mary Stuart's mother, became regent. She was a Mary of Guise. Roman Catholic and a Frenchwoman, and as just at this time Queen Mary married the Dauphin Francis, the whole power of France was placed at her service to crush the Reformers. Although at first she promised to be lenient, she was an enemy not less dangerous because she did not at once show her hostility. In a letter from Geneva

Knox stirred up the Reformers to resist her, and in consequence certain nobles, Glencairn, Argyle, Morton, and others, formed an association to lead the Protestant party. The first act of these Lords of the Congregation, as they were called, was to demand that worship should be conducted in English, and that anyone might exhort and pray in his own house as he pleased.

The year 1558 saw the prospects of the Reformers brighten. Elizabeth succeeded her sister, and England finally threw off the yoke of Rome; but far more valuable than this was the return of Return Knox. Men's epitaphs are often misleading, of Knox. but the words on Knox's tomb tell us the naked truth about him, and reveal the secret of his power— "Here lies one who never feared the face of man". One who knew him bears the same testimony: "the voice of that one man is able in an hour to put more life into us than six hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears". Soon after his return Knox preached a vehement sermon at Perth against idolatry. Some of his hearers suited their actions to what they took to be Knox's teaching. They threw down the

(M 595)

H

images in the cathedral, and destroyed the pictures and the stained windows. The spirit spread from Perth to St. Andrews, Dundee, Linlithgow, Edinburgh, and all over the country. The greatest ruin fell on the monasteries. "Burn the nests and the rooks will fly", cried Knox. The monks were scattered, their churches and buildings unroofed, their lands taken by the nobles. We may regret the wanton destruction of cathedrals, abbeys, and churches, which has left Scotland so bare of fine buildings, but we need not be surprised at it. "Revolutions", it has been said, "are not made with rose-water"; and the Reformers wished to efface everything that might connect men's minds with the religion which they hated.

Nothing was left to the Regent but to use force. She obtained troops from France; the Lords of the Congregation gathered an army and besieged the French at Leith. At this critical moment, when it was not clear to which side victory would incline, help came from England. Elizabeth hated Knox for a book he had written against women-rulers, but she feared the danger of Scotland falling into French hands still more. She resolved to aid the Lords of the Congregation, so she sent a fleet into the Firth of Forth, and cut off the French supplies. This ended the contest. The Regent Mary of Guise died, and by the Treaty of Leith the French troops were to leave Scotland. Power was thus left in the hands of the Reformers, and so Scotland became avowedly Protestant.

Treaty of Leith, 1560. Thus Mary in Scot land, 1561.

when after her French husband's death Mary Stuart came back to Scotland, her position was one of great difficulty. She was Catholic, but her people were Protestant;

she was fond of France, but her people had grown to hate the French; she was the next heir to the English throne, but Elizabeth would not admit her claim. These things were all against her. Yet she had advantages. She was beautiful, and could persuade men to do what she wanted; and she was clever. Even Knox himself admitted that. "If there be not in her a crafty wit," said he, "my judgment faileth me."

It was not long before Mary showed this crafty wit. In spite of Elizabeth's opposition she made up her mind to marry her cousin, Lord Darnley. Marries Unluckily Darnley was not the right hus- Darnley. band for Mary. The two soon quarrelled. Darnley was angry because Mary would not let him be called king; and he was jealous of an Italian musician, David Rizzio, whom Mary employed as her secretary. Although a Catholic, he joined with the Protestant nobles to plot Rizzio's murder. Murder of One evening he came to Holyrood in com- Rizzio. pany with Ruthven, Morton, Lindsay, and others. Darnley went first into the queen's room, where she was sitting with Rizzio. He pretended he had come on a friendly visit, and put his arm round the queen's waist. Suddenly she was alarmed to see Ruthven clad in complete armour, ghastly pale of face, stalk into the room. Rizzio read his fate at a glance. He clung to the queen's skirts and cried for mercy, but he was in hands which knew no mercy. He was dragged into the next room and murdered.

If Darnley could be treacherous and merciless, there were others in Scotland who could Bothwell match him. Francis, Earl of Bothwell, ima- murders gined that he would please the queen if he Darnley. put Darnley out of the way. It is not clear that Mary