Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/527

Rh REFORMATION.] SCOTLAND 503 but were confirmed by the first parliament after Mary's deposition. On 18th August the Confession of Faith received the sanction of the estates. On the 24th an Act was passed declaring that the bishop of Rome had no juris- diction or authority within the realm. Another rescinded all Acts passed since James I. contrary to God's word ; and a third prohibited the mass or baptism according to the Roman rite, and ordained strict inquisition against all persons contravening the statute. The form of church government was not explicitly altered. The archbishop of St Andrews, and Dunkeld and Dunblane alone of the bishops, are said to have voted against the Confession, and Athole, Somerville, Caithness, and Bothwell alone of the nobles. The whole power of the state was at this time in the hands of the party of the Reformation and resist- ance was useless. The Confession of Faith, the corner- stone of the new policy both in church and state, was drawn up by Knox and five other ministers, but revised by the more moderate Reformers Lethmgton and Winram. The power of the civil magistrate was declared in terms which indicate the revision of Lethington rather than the original draft of Knox. Its language is certainly such as monarchs had been little accustomed to, though the expression is not so blunt as Knox used in preaching and conversation. Kings, princes, and magistrates in free cities are declared to be those to whom the reformation of religion " chiefly and most principally appertains." They are themselves to be judged by God, being appointed for the maintenance of the true religion and suppression of idolatry. Resistance to them, but only when vigilant in the execution of their office, is declared sinful. The same persons who had prepared the Confession were entrusted with the composition of a code of ecclesi- astical polity, and a draft, after being first laid before the convention of 1560, was submitted as revised to that of the following year. This First Book of Discipline was not universally approved ; several of its provisions, especially those relating to church estates and their application to the support of the ministry, the relief of the poor, and the furtherance of education, were little to the taste of the nobility, and it was never sanctioned by the estates or fully acted on. Other parts of it were, however, embodied in the Second Book of Discipline, which became the law of the Reformed Church. It remains a memorial of the far- sighted views of Knox, its author ; and the verdict of posterity has been in his favour and against the nobles who prevented its being carried out. See PRESBYTERIANISM, vol. xix. p. 679 sq. The death of Francis II. (6th December 1560) materially altered the political situation. The much feared subordi- nation of Scotland to France was at last averted. Mary Stuart, only nineteen, was young enough to be influenced by a new husband and new responsibilities. Her character was not yet known, but her relations with Catherine de' Medici were not friendly, and there was little doubt that she would take advantage of the provision in her marriage articles and return to Scotland. Sir John Sandilands's mission to France to procure the royal sanction to the treaty of Edinburgh and the Acts of the Reformation parliament must have been unpalatable, and he was not favourably re- Mary's ceived. Before she left France Mary was visited by envoys stum to O f the opposite parties into which Scotland was divided. ' Lesley, official of Aberdeen, afterwards bishop of Ross, and her valiant defender, was sent by the Catholic lords and bishops with a special message from Huntly, urging her to come to Aberdeen, where an army of 20,000 men would be at her disposal. But Huntly had not proved trustworthy during the regency and Mary rejected an offer which would have plunged the kingdom in war from the moment she landed. The very day after she had seen Lesley her brother Lord James, who had been sent by 1560-1563. the Lords of Congregation, met her at St Dizier. She received him favourably, but declined to ratify the treaty till she consulted her council. An attempt was made to capture Mary on her way to Scotland ; but, sailing from Calais on 14th August, she landed at Leith on the 19th. She was accompanied by three uncles and a considerable suite, including Castelnau the historian, Brantome the memoir writer, and the poet Chastelard. 1 On her return to Scotland Mary showed herself disposed to conciliate the Reformers provided she was allowed the exercise of her own faith. This had been guaranteed her by Lord James. His near kinship to the queen at a time when the stain of bastardy was less regarded, and his close relation with the Reformers, made him necessary to both and gave him an influence which his eminent prudence used for the good of the nation, but with an eye to his own advantage. Without thrusting himself too promi- nently forward, he led the privy council (ably supported by Lethington), and, without the name, was in fact prime minister. The title of Mar, and, when that was reclaimed by the heir of the Erskines, of Moray or MURRAY (q.v.), with its large territories, gave him the designation by which he is best known, as well as great wealth, which he dispersed by means not well explained. But the leaven of another influence than that of the statesman was now at work in Scottish politics. This was embodied in John Knox, the Knox most representative Scotsman since Wallace. The first and Sunday after Mary's arrival the mob tried to interrupt Mary> mass at Holyrood, and Moray had himself to keep the chapel door to prevent its being broken. " His best ex- cuse was," says Knox, " that he wald stop all Scotchmen to enter into the mass." Next Sunday Knox preached in Edinburgh against idolatry. " One mass was more fearful to him," he said, " than 20,000 armed enemies." Little likely as such sentiments were to please the young queen, a meeting between her and the preacher was arranged by Moray, the only third party present. On the matter of religion he was unbending, yet not more so than Mary. His judgment of the queen's character was, " If there be not in her a proud mind, a crafty spirit, and an indurate heart against God and His truth my judgment faileth me." In 1562 Huntly, the chief Romanist in the north, who offered to have the mass said in three counties, rebelled, being indignant at the grant to Moray of an earldom whose estates he then held. Mary, accompanied by her brother, made a progress in the north, where Huntly was defeated and slain at Corrichie, his elder son being imprisoned, his second beheaded, and the lands of Huntly, of his kinsman the earl of Sutherland, and other barons of the house of Huntly forfeited. On her return to Edinburgh Mary again met Knox at Holyrood. He rebuked her for dancing and other frivolities, advised her to attend the public sermons, and told her that it was not his duty to leave his studies in order to wait at her chamber door. There were other interviews, in one of which (April 1563) only Mary seemed to yield a little. She was anxious to use his influence to quiet a threatened rising in the west, and to heal a quarrel between her half sister the countess of Argyll and her husband. Knox promised his aid, but required in return that the penal laws should be enforced against the Papists. This Mary agreed to, and her promise was also apparently kept. Hamilton, archbishop of St Andrews, and forty- seven other persons were prosecuted for hearing confession 1 The story of Mary Stuart, which now approaches by rapid steps its climax, has been told by Mr Swinburne (see MART, vol. xv. p. 594 sq. ), and a poet may regard human character in a manner different from the historian, interpreting motives and drawing conclusions which history, whose view is limited by evidence, cannot reach. Here only the leading facts in her personal story can be stated so far as they affect the course of Scottish history.