Royal Edinburgh: Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets

Within little more than a month after her death peace was signed; the French forces departed, and the English army, not much more loved in its help than the others in their hostility, was escorted back to the Border and safely got rid of. On the 19th of July, all being thus happily settled, St. Giles's was once more filled with a crowd of eager worshippers, "the haill nobilitie and the greatest part of the Congregation,"—a number which must have tried the capacity of the great church, large as it is. Knox does not give his sermon on the occasion, but we have a very noble and devout prayer, or rather thanksgiving, which was used at this service, and in which, though there is one reference to "proud tyrants overthrown," the spirit of devout thankfulness is predominant. He tells us, however, that the subject of his discourses, delivered daily, were the prophecies of Haggai, which he found to be "proper for the time." Some of his hearers, he informs us, spoke jestingly of having now to "bear the barrow to build the house of God." "God be merciful to the speaker," cries the stern prophet, "for we fear he shall have experience that the building of his ain house, the house of God being despised, shall not be so prosperous or of such firmity as we desire it were"—so dangerous was it to jest in the presence of one so tremendously in earnest. The speaker referred to, of this, as of most of the other caustic sayings of the time, is said to have been Lethington.

The first thing done by the Parliament was the distribution of the handful of ministers then existing among the districts which most needed them; the second, the verification and establishment of the Confession of Faith. No more curious scene could have been than this momentous ceremony. The Parliament consisted of all the nobility of Scotland, including among them the bishops and peers of the Church, and the delegates from the boroughs. The Confession was read article by article, and a vote taken upon each. Three only of the lords voted against it. The bishops said nothing. What their feelings must have been, as they sat in their places looking on, while the long array of the Congregation voted, it is vain to attempt to imagine. There was nothing the Reformers would have liked better than that discussion to which Knox had vainly bidden his opponents, throwing down his glove as to mortal combat. "Some of our ministers were present," he says, "standing upon their feet ready to have answered in case any would have defended the Papistrie and impugned our affirmations." But no one of all the ecclesiastics present said a word. The Earl Marischal, when he rose in his turn to vote, commented upon this remarkable abstinence with the straightforwardness of a practical man. "It is long since I have had some favour to the truth," he said, "and since I have had a suspicion of the Papistical religion; but I praise my God this day has fully resolved me in the one and the other. For, seeing that my Lord Bishops here present, who for their learning can, and for the zeal they should bear to the veritie would, I suppose, gainsay anything that directly repugns to the veritie of God, speaks nothing in the contraire of the doctrine proposed, I cannot but hold it to be the very truth of God." Even this speech moved the bishops to no reply. They sat silent, perhaps too much astonished at such an extraordinary revolution to say anything; perhaps alarmed at the strength of the party against them. It might be that there was little learning among them, though they had the credit of it; certainly the arguments which Knox reports on several occasions are inconceivably feeble on the side of the old faith. But whatever was the meaning there they sat dumb, and looked on bewildered, confounded, while the new Confession was voted paragraph by paragraph, and the whole scope of the Scottish constitution changed.

KNOX'S HOUSE, HIGH STREET

The next step was the abolition of the mass, an act by which it was forbidden that any should either hear or say that office "or be present thereat, under the pain of confiscation of all their goods movable and immovable, and punishing of their bodies at the discretion of the Magistrates." Another edict followed abolishing the jurisdiction of the Pope under pain of "proscription, banishment, and never to brook honour, office, or dignity within this realm." "These and other things," says the Reformer, "were orderly done in lawful and free Parliament," with the bishops and all spiritual lords in their places sitting dumb and making no sign. The Queen was at liberty to say afterwards, as was done, that a Parliament where she was not represented in any way, either by viceroy or regent, where there was no exhibition of sceptre, sword, or crown, and in short where the monarch was left out altogether, was not a lawful Parliament. But the most remarkable feature of this strange assembly amid all the voting and "bruit" is the dramatic silence of the State ecclesiastical. It is curious that no fervent brother should have been found to maintain the cause of his faith. But probably it was better policy to refrain. The extraordinary absence of logic as well as toleration which made the Reformers unable to see what a lame conclusion this was after their own struggle for freedom, and that they were exactly following the example of their adversaries, need not be remarked. John Knox thought it a quite sufficient answer to say that the mass was idolatry and his own ways of thinking absolutely and certainly true; but so of course has the Roman Catholic Church done when the impulse of persecution was strongest in her. There is one only thing to be said in favour of the Reformers, and that is, that while a number of good men had been sacrificed at the stake for the Reformed doctrines, no one was burned for saying mass; the worst that happened, notwithstanding their fierce enactments, being the exposure in the pillory of a priest. Rotten eggs and stones are bad arguments either in religion or metaphysics, but not so violently bad as fire and flame.

Thus the Reformed religion was established in Scotland, and Knox settled in St. Giles's for the remainder of his life. Whether he was at once placed in the picturesque house with its panelled rooms and old-fashioned comfort and gracefulness which still bears his name, standing out in a far-seeing angle from which he could contemplate the abounding life of the High Street, the great parish in which half his life was spent, is not certain; but it was a most fit and natural lodging for the minister of St. Giles's. And for the rest of his life, with very few intervals, all the stream of public life in Scotland flowed about this dwelling. His importance in every national question, the continual references made to him, the appeals addressed to him by monarch and noble, as well as by burghers and retainers, show better than any statement the unique position he held. He was at this time a man of fifty-five. His Marjory Bowes, never I think mentioned but by this name, the "weill belovit sister" who is associated with so much of his life without one trace of human identity ever stealing through the mist that envelops her, was dead; disappearing noiseless into the grave, where it would seem her mother, Mrs. Bowes, the religious hypochondriac who had required so many solemn treatises in the shape of letters to comfort her, had preceded her daughter. Two boys, the sons of Marjory, were with their father in these panelled rooms. They both grew up, but not to any distinction; he did not spare the rod as appears in an after statement, but loved not to see them in tears, and probably was a fond father enough. All these things, however, are too petty to find any record in what he says of himself.

CHAPTER II

UNDER QUEEN MARY

When the Parliament which did these great things was over, the newly-established Kirk began to labour at its own development, supplying as far as was possible ministers to the more important centres. There were but thirteen available in all according to the lists of those appointed to independent charges: and though they no doubt were supplemented by various of the laymen who had already been authorised to read prayers and preach in the absence of other qualified persons—one of whom, Erskine of Dun, became one of the superintendents of the new organisation—the clerical element must have been very small in comparison with the number of the faithful and the power and influence accorded to the preachers. When these indispensable arrangements had been made the chiefs of the Reformers began to draw up the Book of Discipline,—a compendium of the Constitution of the Church establishing her internal order, the provisions to be made for her, her powers in dealing with the people in general, and special sinners in particular,—as the Confession of Faith was of her doctrines and belief. But this was a much harder morsel for the lords to swallow. Many a stout spirit of the Congregation had held manfully for the Reformed faith and escaped with delight from the exactions and corruptions of the Romish clergy who yet had not schooled his mind to give up the half of his living, the fat commendatorship or priory which had been obtained for him by the highest influence, and upon which he had calculated as a lawful provision for himself and his family. One would have supposed that the meddling and keen supervision of every act of life, which was involved in the Church's stern claim of discipline, would also have alarmed and revolted a body of men not all conformed to the purest models of morality. But this seems to have troubled them little in comparison with the necessity of giving up their share of Church lands and ecclesiastical wealth generally, in order to provide for the preachers, and the needs of education and charity. "Everything that repugned to their corrupt affections was termed in their mockage 'devout imaginations,'" says Knox: and it was no doubt Lethington from whose quiver this winged word came, with so many more.

HOLYROOD PALACE AND ARTHUR'S SEAT

A number of the lords, however, subscribed to the Book of Discipline though with reluctance, but some, and among them several of the most staunch supporters of the Reformation, held back. Knox had himself been placed in an independent position by his congregation, the citizens of Edinburgh, and he was therefore more free to press stipulations which in no way could be supposed to be for his own interest: but he evidently had not taken into account the strong human disposition to keep what has been acquired and the extreme practical difficulty of persuading men to a sacrifice of property. In other matters too there were drawbacks not sufficiently realised. There can be no grander ideal than that of a theocracy, a commonwealth entirely ruled and guided by sacred law: but when it is brought to practice even by the most enlightened, and men's lives are subjected to the keen inspection of an ecclesiastical board new to its functions, and eager for perfection, which does not disdain the most minute detail, nor to listen to the wildest rumours, the high ideal is apt to fall into the most intolerable petty tyranny. And notwithstanding the high exaltation of many minds, and the wonderful intellectual and emotional force which was expended every day in that pulpit of St. Giles's, swaying as with great blasts and currents of religious feeling the minds of the great congregation that filled the aisles of the cathedral, it is to be doubted whether Edinburgh was a very agreeable habitation in those days of early fervour, when the Congregation occupied the chief place everywhere, and men's thoughts were not as yet distracted by the coming of the Queen. During this period there occurs a curious and most significant story of an Edinburgh mob and riot, which might be placed by the side of the famous Porteous mob of later days, and which throws a somewhat lurid light upon the record of this most triumphant moment of the early Reformation. The Papists and bishops, Knox says, had stirred up the rasckall multitude to "make a Robin Hood." We may remark that he never changes his name for the mob, of which he is always sternly contemptuous. When it destroys convents and altars he flatters it (though he acknowledges sometimes a certain ease in finding the matter thus settled for him) with no better a title. He was no democrat though the most independent of citizens. The vulgar crowd had at no time any attraction for him.

It seems no very great offence to "make a Robin Hood": but it is evident this popular festival had been always an occasion of rioting and disorderly behaviour since it was condemned by various acts of previous Parliaments. It will strike the reader, however, with dismay and horror to find that one of the ringleaders having been taken, he was condemned to be hanged, and a gibbet erected near the Cross to carry this sentence into execution. The Diurnal of Occurrents gives by far the fullest and most graphic account of what followed. The trades rose in anxious tumult, at once angry and terrified.

"The craftsmen made great solicitations at the hands of the provost, John Knox minister, and the baillie, to have gotten him relieved, promising that he would do anything possible to be done saving his life—who would do nothing but have him hanged. And when the time of the poor man's hanging approached, and that the poor man was come to the gibbet with the ladder upon which the said cordwainer should have been hanged, the craftsman's children (apprentices?) and servants past to armour; and first they housed Alexander Guthrie and the provost and baillies in the said Alexander's writing booth, and syne come down again to the Cross, and dang down the gibbet and brake it in pieces, and thereafter past to the tolbooth which was then steekit: and when they could not apprehend the keys thereof they brought hammers and dang up the said tolbooth door perforce, the provost, baillies, and others looking thereupon; and when the said door was broken up ane part of them passed in the same, and not only brought the said condemned cordwainer forth of the said tolbooth, but also all the remaining persons being thereintill: and this done they passed up the Hie gate, to have past forth at the Nether Bow."

The shutting up of the provost and bailie in the "writing booth"—one of the wooden structures, no doubt, which hung about St. Giles's, as round so many other cathedrals, where a crowd of little industries were collected about the skirts of the great church, the universal centre of life—has something grimly comic in it, worthy of an Edinburgh mob. Guthrie's booth must have been at the west end, facing the Tolbooth, and the impotence of the authorities, thus compelled to look on while the apprentices and young men in their leather aprons, armed with the long spears which were kept ready in all the shops for immediate use, broke down the prison doors with their hammers and let the prisoners go free—must have added a delightful zest to the triumph of the rebels, who had so lately pleaded humbly before them for the victim's life, but in vain. The provost was Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie, a name little suitable for such a dilemma. When the rude mob, with their shouts and cries, had turned their backs, the imprisoned authorities were able to break out and take shelter in the empty Tolbooth; but when the crowd surged up again, finding the gates closed at the Nether Bow, into the High Street, a scuffle arose, a new "Clear the Causeway," though the defenders of order kept within the walls of the Tolbooth, and thence shot at the rioters, who returned their fire with hagbuts and stones—from three in the afternoon till eight o'clock in the evening, "and never ane man of the town stirred to defend their provost and baillies." Finally the Constable of the Castle was sent for, who made peace, the craftsmen only laying down their arms on condition not only of absolute immunity from punishment for the day's doings, but with an undertaking that all previous actions against them should be stopped, and their masters made to receive them again without grudge or punishment—clearly a complete victory for the rioters. This extorted guarantee was proclaimed at the Cross at nine o'clock on the lingering July night, in the soft twilight which departs so unwillingly from northern skies; and a curious scene it must have been, with the magistrates still cooped up behind the barred windows of the Tolbooth, the triumph of the mob filling the streets with uproar, and spectators no doubt at all the windows, story upon story, looking on, glad, can we doubt? of something to see which was riot without being bloodshed. John Knox adds an explanation of his conduct in his narrative of the occurrence, which somewhat softens our feeling towards him. He refused to ask for the life of the unlucky reveller not without a reason, such as it was.

"Who did answer that he had so oft solicited in their favour that his own conscience accused him that they used his labours for no other end but to be a patron to their impiety. For he had before made intercession for William Harlow, James Fussell, and others that were convict of the former tumult. They proudly said 'that if it was not stayed both he and the Baillies should repent it.' Whereto he answered 'He would not hurt his conscience for any fear of man.'"

It was not perhaps the fault of Knox or his influence that a man should be sentenced to be hanged for the rough horseplay of a Robin Hood performance, or because he was "Lord of Inobedience" or "Abbot of Unreason," like Adam Woodcock; but the extraordinary exaggeration of a society which could think such a punishment reasonable is very curious.

Equally curious is the incidental description of how "the Papists" crowded into Edinburgh after this, apparently swaggering about the streets, "and began to brag as that they would have defaced the Protestants." When the Reformers perceived the audacity of their opponents, they replied by a similar demonstration: "the brethren assembled together and went in such companies, and that in peaceable manner, that the Bishops and their bands forsook the causeway." Many a strange sight must the spectators at the high windows, the old women at their "stairheads," from which they inspected everything, have seen—the bishops one day, the ministers another, and John Knox, were it shade or shine, crossing the High Street with his staff every day to St. Giles's, and seeing everything, whatever occurred on either side of him, with those keen eyes.

This tumult, however, was almost the end of the undisturbed reign of the Congregation. In August, Mary Stewart, with all the pomp that her poor country could muster for her, arrived in a fog, as so many lesser people have done, on her native shores; and henceforward the balance of power was strangely disturbed. The gravest of the lords owned a certain divergence from the hitherto unbroken claims of religious duty, and a hundred softnesses and forbearances stole in, which were far from being according to the Reformer's views. The new reign began with a startling test of loyalty to conviction, which apparently had not been anticipated, and which came with a shock upon the feelings even of those who loved the Queen most. The first Sunday which Mary spent in Holyrood, preparations were made for mass in the chapel, probably with no foresight of the effect likely to be produced. Upon this a sudden tumult arose in the very ante-chambers. "Shall that idol be suffered again to take its place in this realm? It shall not," even the courtiers said to each other. The Master of Lindsay, that grim Lindsay of the Byres, so well known among Mary's adversaries, standing with some gentlemen of Fife in the courtyard, declared that "the idolatrous priests should die the death." In this situation of danger the Lord James, afterwards so well known as Murray, the Queen's brother, put himself in the breach. He "took upon him to keep the door of the chapel." There was no man in Scotland more true to the faith, and none more esteemed in the Congregation. He excused himself after for this act of true charity by saying that his object was to prevent any Scot from entering while the mass was proceeding: but Knox divined that it was to protect the priest, and preserve silence and sanctity for the service, though he disapproved it, that Murray thus intervened. The Reformers did not appreciate the good brother's devotion. Knox declared that he was more afraid of one mass than of ten thousand armed men, and the arches of St. Giles's rang with his alarm, his denunciation, his solemn warning. He recounts, however, how by degrees this feeling softened among those who frequented the Court. "There were Protestants found," he says, "that were not ashamed at tables and other open places to ask 'Why may not the Queen have her mass, and the form of her religion? What can that hurt us, or our religion?' until by degrees this indulgence rose to a warmer and stronger sentiment. 'The Queen's mass and her priests will we maintain: this hand and this rapier shall fight in their defence.'" One can well imagine the chivalrous youth or even the grave baron, with generous blood in his veins, who, with hand upon the hilt of the too ready sword, would dare even Knox's frown with this outcry; and in these days it is the champion of the Queen and of her conscience who secures our sympathy. But the Reformer had at least the cruel force of logic on his side, the severe logic which decreed the St. Bartholomew. To stamp out the previous faith was the only policy on either side.

Then, as now, we think, there are few even of those who are forced to believe that the after-accusations against Queen Mary were but too clearly proved, who will not look back with a compunctious tenderness upon that early and bright beginning of her career. So strong a sense of remorseful pity, and the intolerableness of such a fate, overcomes the spectator, that he who stands by and looks on, knowing all that is coming, can scarcely help feeling that even he, unborn, might send a shout from out the dim futurity to warn her. She came with so much hope, so eagerly, to her new kingdom, so full of pleasure and interest and readiness to hear and see, and to be pleased with everything—even John Knox, that pestilent preacher, of whom she must have heard so much; he who had written the book against women which naturally made every woman indignant yet curious, keenly desirous to see him, to question him, to put him on his defence. I think great injustice has been done to both in the repeated interviews in which the sentimentalist perceives nothing but a harsh priest upbraiding a lovely woman and making her weep; and the sage of sterner mettle sees an almost sublime sight, a prophet unmoved by the meretricious charms of a queen of hearts. Neither of these exaggerated views will survive, we believe, a simple reading of the interviews themselves, especially in Knox's account of them. He is not merciless nor Mary silly. One would almost fancy that she liked the encounter which matched her own quick wit against the tremendous old man with his "blast against women," his deep-set fiery eyes, his sovereign power to move and influence the people. He was absolutely a novel personage to Mary: their conversations are like a quick glancing of polished weapons—his, too heavy for her young brilliancy of speech and nature, crushing with ponderous force the light-flashing darts of question; but she, no way daunted, comprehending him, meeting full in the face the prodigious thrust. A brave young creature of twenty confronting the great Reformer, in single combat so to speak, and retiring from the field, not triumphant indeed, but with all the honours of war, and a blessing half extorted from him at the end, she secures a sympathy which the weaker in such a fight does not always obtain, but which we cannot deny to her in her bright intelligence and brave defence of her faith. When his friends asked him, after this first interview, what he thought of the Queen, he gave her credit for "a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an indurate heart." But curiously enough, though the effect is not unprecedented, the faithfulness of genius baulks the prejudices of the writer, and there is nowhere a brighter or more genial representation of Mary than that which is to be found in a history full of abuse of her and vehement vituperation. She is "mischievous Marie," a vile woman, a shameless deceiver; every bad name that can be coined by a mediæval fancy, not unlearned in such violences; but when he is face to face with this woman of sin it is not in Knox to give other than a true picture, and that—apart from the grudging acknowledgment of her qualities and indication of evil intentions divined—is almost always an attractive one.