John Knox and the Reformation

CHAPTER XI: KNOX’S INTRIGUES, AND HIS ACCOUNT OF THEM, 1559

The Reformers, and Knox as their secretary and historian, had now reached a very difficult and delicate point in their labours. Their purpose was, not by any means to secure toleration and freedom of conscience, but to extirpate the religion to which they were opposed. It was the religion by law existing, the creed of “Authority,” of the Regent and of the King and Queen whom she represented. The position of the Congregation was therefore essentially that of rebels, and, in the state of opinion at the period, to be rebels was to be self-condemned. In the eyes of Calvin and the learned of the Genevan Church, kings were the Lord’s appointed, and the Gospel must not be supported by the sword. “Better that we all perish a hundred times,” Calvin wrote to Coligny in 1561. Protestants, therefore, if they would resist in arms, had to put themselves in order, and though Knox had no doubt that to exterminate idolaters was thoroughly in order, the leaders of his party were obliged to pay deference to European opinion.

By a singular coincidence they adopted precisely the same device as the more militant French Protestants laid before Calvin in August 1559-March 1560. The Scots and the Protestant French represented that they were illegally repressed by foreigners: in Scotland by Mary of Guise with her French troops; in France by the Cardinal and Duc de Guise, foreigners, who had possession of the persons and authority of the “native prince” of Scotland, Mary, and the “native prince” of France, Francis II., both being minors. The French idea was that, if they secured the aid of a native Protestant prince (Condé), they were in order, as against the foreign Guises, and might kill these tyrants, seize the King, and call an assembly of the Estates. Calvin was consulted by the chief of the conspiracy, La Renaudie; he disapproved; the legality lent by one native prince was insufficient; the details of the plot were “puerile,” and Calvin waited to see how the country would take it. The plot failed, at Amboise, in March 1560.

In Scotland, as in France, devices about a prince of the native blood suggested themselves. The Regent, being of the house of Guise, was a foreigner, like her brothers in France. The “native princes” were Chatelherault and his eldest son, Arran. The leaders, soon after Lord James and Argyll formally joined the zealous brethren, saw that without foreign aid their enterprise was desperate. Their levies must break up and go home to work; the Regent’s nucleus of French troops could not be ousted from the sea fortress of Dunbar, and would in all probability be joined by the army promised by Henri II. His death, the Huguenot risings, the consequent impotence of the Guises to aid the Regent, could not be foreseen. Scotland, it seemed, would be reduced to a French province; the religion would be overthrown.

There was thus no hope, except in aid from England. But by the recent treaty of Cateau Cambresis (April 2, 1559), Elizabeth was bound not to help the rebels of the French Dauphin, the husband of the Queen of Scots. Moreover, Elizabeth had no stronger passion than a hatred of rebels. If she was to be persuaded to help the Reformers, they must produce some show of a legitimate “Authority” with whom she could treat. This was as easy to find as it was to the Huguenots in the case of Condé. Chatelherault and Arran, native princes, next heirs to the crown while Mary was childless, could be produced as legitimate “Authority.” But to do this implied a change of “Authority,” an upsetting of “Authority,” which was plain rebellion in the opinion of the Genevan doctors. Knox was thus obliged, in sermons and in the pamphlet (Book II. of his “History”), to maintain that nothing more than freedom of conscience and religion was contemplated, while, as a matter of fact, he was foremost in the intrigue for changing the “Authority,” and even for depriving Mary Stuart of “entrance and title” to her rights. He therefore, in Book II. (much of which was written in August-October or September-October 1559, as an apologetic contemporary tract), conceals the actual facts of the case, and, while perpetually accusing the Regent of falsehood and perfidy, displays an extreme “economy of truth,” and cannot hide the pettifogging prevarications of his party. His wiser plan would have been to cancel this Book, or much of it, when he set forth later to write a history of the Reformation. His party being then triumphant, he could have afforded to tell most of the truth, as in great part he does in his Book III. But he could not bring himself to throw over the narrative of his party pamphlet (Book II.), and it remains much as it was originally written, though new touches were added.

The point to be made in public and in the apologetic tract was that the Reformers contemplated no alteration of “Authority.” This was untrue.

Writing later (probably in 1565-66) in his Third Book, Knox boasts of his own initiation of the appeal to England, which included a scheme for the marriage of the Earl of Arran, son of the Hamilton chief, Chatelherault, to Queen Elizabeth. Failing issue of Queen Mary, Arran was heir to the Scottish throne, and if he married the Queen of England, the rightful Queen of Scotland would not be likely to wear her crown. The contemplated match was apt to involve a change of dynasty. The lure of the crown for his descendants was likely to bring Chatelherault, and perhaps even his brother the Archbishop, over to the side of the Congregation: in short it was an excellent plot. Probably the idea occurred to the leaders of the Congregation at or shortly after the time when Argyll and Lord James threw in their lot definitely with the brethren on May 31. On June 14 Croft, from Berwick, writes to Cecil that the leaders, “from what I hear, will likely seek her Majesty’s” (Elizabeth’s) “assistance,” and mean to bring Arran home. Some think that he is already at Geneva, and he appears to have made the acquaintance of Calvin, with whom later he corresponded. “They are likely to motion a marriage you know where”; of Arran, that is, with Elizabeth. 140 Moreover, one Whitlaw was at this date in France, and by June 28, communicated the plan to Throckmorton, the English Ambassador. Thus the scheme was of an even earlier date than Knox claims for his own suggestion.

He tells us that at St. Andrews, after the truce of Cupar Muir (June 13), he “burstit forth,” in conversation with Kirkcaldy of Grange, on the necessity of seeking support from England. Kirkcaldy long ago had watched the secret exit from St. Andrews Castle, while his friends butchered the Cardinal. He was taken in the castle when Knox was taken; he was a prisoner in France; then he entered the French service, acting, while so engaged, as an English spy. Before and during the destruction of monasteries he was in the Regent’s service, but she justly suspected him of intending to desert her at this juncture. Kirkcaldy now wrote to Cecil, without date, but probably on June 21, and with the signature “Zours as ye knaw.” Being in the Regent’s party openly, he was secretly betraying her; he therefore accuses her of treachery. (He left her publicly, after a pension from England had been procured for him.) He says that the Regent averred that “favourers of God’s word should have liberty to live after their consciences,” “yet, in the conclusion of the peace” (the eight days’ truce) “she has uttered her deceitful mind, having now declared that she will be enemy to all them that shall not live after her religion.” Consequently, the Protestants are wrecking “all the friaries within their bounds.” But Knox has told us that they declared their intention of thus enjoying liberty of conscience before “the conclusion of the peace,” and wrecked Lindores Abbey during the peace! Kirkcaldy adds that the Regent already suspects him.

Kirkcaldy, having made the orthodox charge of treachery against the woman whom he was betraying, then asks Cecil whether Elizabeth will accept their “friendship,” and adds, with an eye to Arran, “I wish likewise her Majesty were not too hasty in her marriage.” 141 On June 23, writing from his house, Grange, and signing his name, Kirkcaldy renews his proposals. In both letters he anticipates the march of the Reformers to turn the Regent’s garrison out of Perth. On June 25 he announces that the Lords are marching thither. They had already the secret aid of Lethington, who remained, like the traitor that he was, in the Regent’s service till the end of October. 142 Knox also writes at this time to Cecil from St. Andrews.

On June 1, Henri II. of France had written to the Regent promising to send her strong reinforcements, 143 but he was presently killed in a tourney by the broken lance shaft of Montgomery.

The Reformers now made tryst at Perth for June 25, to restore “religion” and expel the Scots in French service. The little garrison surrendered (their opponents are reckoned by Kirkcaldy at 10,000 men), idolatry was again suppressed, and Perth restored to her municipal constitution. The ancient shrines of Scone were treated in the usual way, despite the remonstrances of Knox, Lord James, and Argyll. They had threatened Hepburn, Bishop of Moray, that if he did not join them “they neither could spare nor save his place.” This was on June 20, on the same day he promised to aid them and vote with them in Parliament. 144 Knox did his best, but the Dundee people began the work of wrecking; and the Bishop, in anger, demanded and received the return of his written promise of joining the Reformers. On the following day, irritated by some show of resistance, the people of Dundee and Perth burned the palace of Scone and the abbey, “whereat no small number of us was offended.” An old woman said that “filthy beasts” dwelt “in that den,” to her private knowledge, “at whose words many were pacified.” The old woman is an excellent authority. 145

The pretext of perfect loyalty was still maintained by the Reformers; their honesty we can appreciate. They did not wish, they said, to overthrow “authority”; merely to be allowed to worship in their own way (and to prevent other people from worshipping in theirs, which was the order appointed by the State). That any set of men may rebel and take their chances is now recognised, but the Reformers wanted to combine the advantages of rebellion with the reputation of loyal subjects. Persons who not only band against the sovereign, but invoke foreign aid and seek a foreign alliance, are, however noble their motives, rebels. There is no other word for them. But that they were not rebels Knox urged in a sermon at Edinburgh, which the Reformers, after devastating Stirling, reached by June 28-29 (?), and the Second Book of his “History” labours mainly to prove this point; no change of “authority” is intended.

What Knox wanted is very obvious. He wanted to prevent Mary Stuart from enjoying her hereditary crown. She was a woman, as such under the curse of “The First Blast of the Trumpet,” and she was an idolatress. Presently, as we shall see, he shows his hand to Cecil.

Before the Reformers entered Edinburgh Mary of Guise retired to the castle of Dunbar, where she had safe access to the sea. In Edinburgh Knox says that the poor sacked the monasteries “before our coming.” The contemporary Diurnal of Occurrents attributes the feat to Glencairn, Ruthven, Argyll, and the Lord James. 146

Knox was chosen minister of Edinburgh, and as soon as they arrived the Lords, according to the “Historie of the Estate of Scotland,” sent envoys to the Regent, offering obedience if she would “relax” the preachers, summoned on May 10, “from the horn” and allow them to preach. The Regent complied, but, of course, peace did not ensue, for, according to Knox, in addition to a request “that we might enjoy liberty of conscience,” a demand for the withdrawal of all French forces out of Scotland was made. 147 This could not be granted.

Presently Mary of Guise issued before July 2, in the name of the King and Queen, Francis II. and Mary Stuart, certain charges against the Reformers, which Knox in his “History” publishes. 148 A remark that Mary Stuart lies like her mother, seems to be written later than the period (September-October 1559) when this Book II. was composed. The Regent says that the rising was only under pretence of religion, and that she has offered a Parliament for January 1560. “A manifest lie,” says Knox, “for she never thought of it till we demanded it.” He does not give a date to the Regent’s paper, but on June 25 Kirkcaldy wrote to Percy that the Regent “is like to grant the other party” (the Reformers) “all they desire, which in part she has offered already.” 149

Knox seizes on the word “offered” as if it necessarily meant “offered though unasked,” and so styles the Regent’s remark “a manifest lie.” But Kirkcaldy, we see, uses the words “has in part offered already” when he means that the Regent has “offered” to grant some of the wishes of his allies.

Meanwhile the Regent will allow freedom of conscience in the country, and especially in Edinburgh. But the Reformers, her paper goes on, desire to subvert the crown. To prove this she says that they daily receive messengers from England and send their own; and they have seized the stamps in the Mint (a capital point as regards the crown) and the Palace of Holyrood, which Lesley says that they sacked. Knox replies, “there is never a sentence in the narrative true,” except that his party seized the stamps merely to prevent the issue of base coin (not to coin the stolen plate of the churches and monasteries for themselves, as Lesley says they did). But Knox’s own letters, and those of Kirkcaldy of Grange and Sir Henry Percy, prove that they were intriguing with England as early as June 23-25. Their conduct, with the complicity of Percy, was perfectly well known to the Regent’s party, and was denounced by d’Oysel to the French ambassador in London in letters of July. 150 Elizabeth, on August 7, answered the remonstrances of the Regent, promising to punish her officials if guilty. Nobody lied more frankly than “that imperial votaress.”

When Knox says “there is never a sentence in the narrative true,” he is very bold. It was not true that the rising was merely under pretext of religion. It may have been untrue that messengers went daily to England, but five letters were written between June 21 and June 28. To stand on the words of the Regent – “every day” – would be a babyish quibble. All the rest of her narrative was absolutely true.

Knox, on June 28, asked leave to enter England for secret discourse; he had already written to the same effect from St. Andrews. 151 If Henri sends French reinforcement, Knox “is uncertain what will follow”; we may guess that authority would be in an ill way. Cecil temporised; he wanted a better name than Kirkcaldy’s – a man in the Regent’s service – to the negotiations (July 4). “Anywise kindle the fire,” he writes to Croft (July 8). Croft is to let the Reformers know that Arran has escaped out of France. Such a chance will not again “come in our lives.” We see what the chance is!

On July 19 Knox writes again to Cecil, enclosing what he means to be an apology for his “Blast of the Trumpet,” to be given to Elizabeth. He says, while admitting Elizabeth’s right to reign, as “judged godly,” though a woman, that they “must be careful not to make entrance and title to many, by whom not only shall the truth be impugned, but also shall the country be brought to bondage and slavery. God give you eyes to foresee and wisdom to avoid the apparent danger.” 152

The “many” to whom “entrance and title” are not to be given, manifestly are Mary Stuart, Queen of France and Scotland.

It is not very clear whether Knox, while thus working against a woman’s “entrance and title” to the crown on the ground of her sex, is thinking of Mary Stuart’s prospects of succession to the throne of England or of her Scottish rights, or of both. His phrase is cast in a vague way; “many” are spoken of, but it is not hard to understand what particular female claimant is in his mind.

Thus Knox himself was intriguing with England against his Queen at the very moment when in his “History” he denies that communications were frequent between his party and England, or that any of the Regent’s charges are true. As for opposing authority and being rebellious, the manifest fundamental idea of the plot is to marry Elizabeth to Arran and deny “entrance and title” to the rightful Queen. It was an admirable scheme, and had Arran not become a lunatic, had Elizabeth not been “that imperial votaress” vowed to eternal maidenhood, their bridal, with the consequent loss of the Scottish throne by Mary, would have been the most fortunate of all possible events. The brethren had, in short, a perfect right to defend their creed in arms; a perfect right to change the dynasty; a perfect right to intrigue with England, and to resist a French landing, if they could. But for a reformer of the Church to give a dead lady the lie in his “History” when the economy of truth lay rather on his own side, as he knew, is not so well. We shall see that Knox possibly had the facts in his mind during the first interview with Mary Stuart. 153

The Lords, July 2, replied to the proclamation of Mary of Guise, saying that she accused them of a purpose “to invade her person.” 154 There is not a word of the kind in the Regent’s proclamation as given by Knox himself. They denied what the Regent in her proclamation had not asserted, and what she had asserted about their dealings with England they did not venture to deny; “whereby,” says Spottiswoode in his “History,” “it seemed there was some dealing that way for expelling the Frenchmen, which they would not deny, and thought not convenient as then openly to profess.” 155 The task of giving the lie to the Regent when she spoke truth was left to the pen of Knox.

Meanwhile, at Dunbar, Mary of Guise was in evil case. She had sounded Erskine, the commander of the Castle, who, she hoped, would stand by her. But she had no money to pay her French troops, who were becoming mutinous, and d’Oysel “knew not to what Saint to vow himself.” The Earl of Huntly, before he would serve the Crown, 156 insisted on a promise of the Earldom of Moray; this desire was to be his ruin. Huntly was a double dealer; “the gay Gordons” were ever brave, loyal, and bewildered by their chiefs. By July 22, the Scots heard of the fatal wound of Henri II., to their encouragement. Both parties were in lack of money, and the forces of the Congregation were slipping home by hundreds. Mary, according to Knox, was exciting the Duke against Argyll and Lord James, by the charge that Lord James was aiming at the crown, in which if he succeeded, he would deprive not only her daughter of the sovereignty, but the Hamiltons of the succession. Young and ambitious as Lord James then was, and heavily as he was suspected, even in England, it is most improbable that he ever thought of being king.

The Congregation refused to let Argyll and Lord James hold conference with the Regent. Other discussions led to no result, except waste of time, to the Regent’s advantage; and, on July 22, Mary, in council with Lord Erskine, Huntly, and the Duke, resolved to march against the Reformers at Edinburgh, who had no time to call in their scattered levies in the West, Angus, and Fife. Logan of Restalrig, lately an ally of the godly, surrendered Leith, over which he was the superior, to d’Oysel; and the Congregation decided to accept a truce (July 23-24).

At this point Knox’s narrative becomes so embroiled that it reminds one of nothing so much as of Claude Nau’s attempts to glide past an awkward point in the history of his employer, Mary Stuart. I have puzzled over Knox’s narrative again and again, and hope that I have disentangled the knotted and slippery thread.

It is not wonderful that the brethren made terms, for the “Historie” states that their force numbered but 1500 men, whereas d’Oysel and the Duke led twice that number, horse and foot. They also heard from Erskine, in the Castle, that, if they did not accept “such appointment as they might have,” he “would declare himself their enemy,” as he had promised the Regent. It seems that she did not want war, for d’Oysel’s French alone should have been able to rout the depleted ranks of the Congregation.

The question is, What were the terms of treaty? for it is Knox’s endeavour to prove that the Regent broke them, and so justified the later proceedings of the Reformers. The terms, in French, are printed by Teulet. 157 They run thus: —

1. The Protestants, not being inhabitants of Edinburgh, shall depart next day.

2. They shall deliver the stamps for coining to persons appointed by the Regent, hand over Holyrood, and Ruthven and Pitarro shall be pledges for performance.

3. They shall be dutiful subjects, except in matters of religion.

4. They shall not disturb the clergy in their persons or by withholding their rents, &c., before January 10, 1560.

5. They shall not attack churches or monasteries before that date.

6. The town of Edinburgh shall enjoy liberty of conscience, and shall choose its form of religion as it pleases till that date.

7. The Regent shall not molest the preachers nor suffer the clergy to molest them for cause of religion till that date.

8. Keith, Knox, and Spottiswoode, add that no garrisons, French or Scots, shall occupy Edinburgh, but soldiers may repair thither from their garrisons for lawful business.

The French soldiers are said to have swaggered in St. Giles’s, but no complaint is made that they were garrisoned in Edinburgh. In fact, they abode in the Canongate and Leith.

Now, these were the terms accepted by the Congregation. This is certain, not only because historians, Knox excepted, are unanimous, but because the terms were either actually observed, or were evaded, on a stated point of construction.

1. The Congregation left Edinburgh.

2. They handed over the stamps of the Mint, Holyrood, and the two pledges.

3. 4, 5. We do not hear that they attacked any clerics or monastery before they broke off publicly from the treaty, and Knox (i. 381) admits that Article 4 was accepted.

6. They would not permit the town of Edinburgh to choose its religion by “voting of men.” On July 29, when Huntly, Chatelherault, and Erskine, the neutral commander of the Castle, asked for a plébiscite, as provided in the treaty of July 24, the Truth, said the brethren, was not a matter of human votes, and, as the brethren held St. Giles’s Church before the treaty, under Article 7 they could not be dispossessed. 158 The Regent, to avoid shadow of offence, yielded the point as to Article 6, and was accused of breach of treaty because, occupying Holyrood, she had her Mass there. Had Edinburgh been polled, the brethren knew that they would have been outvoted. 159

Now, Knox’s object, in that part of Book II. of his “History,” which was written in September-October 1559 as a tract for contemporary reading, is to prove that the Regent was the breaker of treaty. His method is first to give “the heads drawn by us, which we desired to be granted.” The heads are —

1. No member of the Congregation shall be troubled in any respect by any authority for the recent “innovation” before the Parliament of January 10, 1560, decides the controversies.

2. Idolatry shall not be restored where, on the day of treaty, it has been suppressed.

3. Preachers may preach wherever they have preached and wherever they may chance to come.

4. No soldiers shall be in garrison in Edinburgh.

5. The French shall be sent away on “a reasonable day” and no more brought in without assent of the whole Nobility and Parliament. 160

These articles make no provision for the safety of Catholic priests and churches, and insist on suppression of idolatry where it has been put down, and the entire withdrawal of French forces. Knox’s party could not possibly denounce these terms which they demanded as “things unreasonable and ungodly,” for they were the very terms which they had been asking for, ever since the Regent went to Dunbar. Yet, when the treaty was made, the preachers did say “our case is not yet so desperate that we need to grant to things unreasonable and ungodly.” 161 Manifestly, therefore, the terms actually obtained, as being “unreasonable and ungodly,” were not those for which the Reformers asked, and which, they publicly proclaimed, had been conceded.