ing of God's servants, so far as they could; as we doubt not but they have done, in the heads of excommunication, swearing, and of matrimony; in the which it is no doubt but the servants of God did condemn the abuse only, and not the right ordinance of God: for, who knows not that the excommunication in those days was altogether abused; that swearing abounded, without punishment or remorse of conscience; and that divorcement was made, for such causes as worldly men had invented? But to our history. Albeit that the accusation of the bishop and his accomplices was very grievous, yet God so assisted his servants, partly by inclining the King's heart to gentleness, (for divers of them were his great familiars,) and partly by giving bold and godly answers to their accusators, that the enemies in the end were frustrate of their purpose: for, while the bishop, in mockage, said to Adam Reid of Barskyming, Reid, believe ye that God is in heaven? He answered, "Not as I do the sacraments seven." Whereat the bishop thinking to have triumphed, said, “Sir, lo, he denies that God is in heaven. Whereat the king wondering, said, "Adam Reid, what say ye?" The other answered, "Pleaseth your majesty to hear the end betwixt the churl and me": and therewith he turned to the bishop, and said, "I neither think nor believe, as thou thinkest, that God is in heaven; but I am most assured, that he is not only in heaven, but also in the earth; but thou and thy faction declare by your works, that either ye think there is no God at all, or else, that he is so set up in heaven, that he regards not what is done upon the earth; for, if thou firmly believedest that God were in heaven, thou shouldest not make thyself check-mate to the King, and altogether forget the charge that Jesus Christ, the Son of God gave to his apostles, which was, to preach his gospel, and not to play the proud prelates, as all the rabble of you do this day. "And now, Sir," said he to the King, "judge ye, whether the bishop or I believe best that God is in heaven." While the bishop and his band could not well revenge themselves, and while many taunts were given them in their teeth, the King, willing to put an end to further reasoning, said to the said Adam Reid, "Wilt thou burn thy bill?" He answered, "Sir, and the bishop and ye will." With these, and the like scoffs, the bishop and his band were so dashed out of countenance, that the greatest part of the accusation was turned to laughter.

In

On August 8, 1502, James IV. was married to Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII. of England, and sister to Henry VIII. A hundred years later, the issue of this marriage united the crowns of the two kingdoms. 1509, Henry VII. died, and Scotland lost a quiet neighbor. Soon after the accession of Henry VIII. to the throne, England engaged in a war with France, and Scotland, under the terms of the league subsisting between that country and France, took the side of her old-time ally. In 1513, the Scottish army, with the king at its head, marched to the Border, and crossed the Tweed on August 22d. The battle of Flodden was fought September 9, 1513. The Scots were defeated, with a loss of upwards of eight thousand. Among the slain was the king, together with the flower of his nobility.

IN

CHAPTER XXVI

THE BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION

N October, 1513, James IV.'s son, an infant of three years, was crowned at Scone, under the title of James V. His mother was named as regent. This arrangement continued until her marriage in the following year with young Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. The Duke of Albany was then recalled from France, and arriving in Scotland in May, 1515, was made regent. He began his government with bold measures, designed to reduce the arrogance and power of the nobles. Offenders of the highest rank were seized, imprisoned, and executed. But these proceedings failed to produce their intended effect, and after a short time Albany discovered the hopelessness of attempting to secure order in the kingdom. He repeatedly returned to France to be free from the turmoil; and after a fluctuating rule of eight years, his regency ended in 1524.

The Earl of Angus now returned, and with the concurrence of the Earl of Arran and others, he became guardian of the king, and assumed the office of chancellor of the kingdom; having obliged Archbishop Beaton to resign that post. The latter, in 1528, organized a conspiracy, by means of which King James effected his escape from the Douglases, and took refuge in the castle of Stirling. "This sudden reaction," says Buckle, "was not the real and controlling cause, but it was undoubtedly the proximate cause of the establishment of Protestantism in Scotland. For the reins of government now passed into the hands of the Church."

James appointed the Archbishop of Glasgow, chancellor; the Abbot of Holyrood, treasurer; and the Bishop of Dunkeld, keeper of the privy seal. The most influential of the nobles were persecuted, and some of them driven from the kingdom. Thus excluded from the government, the nobles began to show a leaning toward the doctrines of the Reformation. Hating the clergy, they became enraged at the ecclesiastical influence over the king; and as time passed they grew firmer in their adherence to the principles of the Reformation.

They were stripped of their honors and their wealth, and many became outcasts, traitors, and beggars. But while their political power was gone, their social power remained. The real foundation of their authority was unshaken, because that authority was based on the clan spirit and the affections of the people. The desire of the nobles for revenge gave rise to a deadly contest between the Scottish aristocracy and the Scottish Church. This conflict lasted without interruption for thirty-two years, and was finally concluded by the triumph of the nobles, who, in 1560, completely overthrew the Church, and destroyed the whole of the Scottish hierarchy. It is a

noteworthy fact in connection with the history of the Reformation in Scotland that most of its leaders and armies came from the western Lowlands, chiefly from those districts in which Wallace and Bruce had lived and raised their armies more than two centuries before. Especially interesting is this fact to him who studies the history of the transplanted Scot in Ireland and America; for most of the Scottish emigrants to those countries emigrated from that part of Scotland.

In 1525, Parliament prohibited the importation of Luther's books. 1527, Patrick Hamilton, who had been a disciple of Luther in Germany, returned home, and began to promulgate his teachings. Early in the following year, he was seized and imprisoned in the castle of St. Andrews, where he was tried, convicted, and burned for heresy on February 29, 1528. In 1534, Gourly, a priest, and Straiton, a layman, were both condemned for heresy, and hanged and burned.

In 1537, James married Magdalen, daughter of the king of France. She died a few months after her arrival in Scotland, and in the following year, he married Mary, daughter of the Duke of Guise. In 1542, Henry VIII. proclaimed war against Scotland; but, while two armies were raised and disbanded, the only engagement which took place was that known as the panic of Solway Moss, where the English leader surprised and scattered the Scots, capturing a number of prisoners.

James died on December 14, 1542, leaving a seven-days-old daughter who afterwards became known to history as Mary Stuart. James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, being next heir to the throne, was elected regent. Henry VIII. of England intrigued for a match between his son, Edward, and the infant queen. A treaty of alliance between England and Scotland was concluded, subject only to ratification by the Scottish Parliament. The clergy, however, headed by Cardinal Beaton (who, on the death of his uncle in 1539, had first become Archbishop of St. Andrews), were very much opposed to the scheme. There was much diplomatic wrangling, but in the end the cardinal triumphed. In December, 1543, Parliament repudiated the treaties, and, in presence of the French ambassadors, renewed the Ancient League with France.

Edinburgh town

about Edinburgh

Henry declared war, and avowed his intention of taking the infant queen by force. In April, 1544, he instructed his commander, the Earl of Hertford, to invade Scotland, there to put all to fire and sword, to burn sack Holyrood House, and towns and villages sack Leith, and burn and subvert it, and all the rest, putting man, woman, and child to fire and sword without exception when any resistance should be made." This done, he was to "pass over to the Fife land, and extend like extremities and destructions in all towns and villages whereunto he might reach conveniently, not forgetting amongst all the rest the cardinal's town of St. Andrews sparing

no creature alive within the same." Hertford carried out his king's

instructions, leading two expeditions into Scotland, one in May, 1544, and another in September.

Meanwhile Cardinal Beaton continued his persecution of the Protestants. He held a court at Perth in January, 1544, and many persons were there convicted of heresy. A number were banished; and four men and one woman were condemned to death-James Randalson, James Hunter, William Anderson, Robert Lamb, and the latter's wife. The men were hanged, but the woman, who had an infant at her breast, was drowned.

George Wishart, a popular reformed preacher, returned from England into Scotland near the end of the year 1544. On the 16th of January, 1546, Wishart, accompanied by John Knox, was preaching in Haddington. That same night, he was apprehended at Ormiston, conveyed to Edinburgh, and shortly after to St. Andrews. Here he was tried for heresy on February 28th, condemned by Cardinal Beaton, and burned to death by his order on the 11th of March. The martyrdom of this man roused a deep feeling of indignation in the popular mind, which was encouraged by many of the nobles; and not long after Cardinal Beaton paid for Wishart's life with his own.

Early on the morning of May 29, 1546, Norman Leslie, son of the Earl of Rothes, with two other men, secretly gained admission to the castle of St. Andrews, where Beaton was then living. They were followed by James Melville and three others, who asked an interview with the cardinal. Immediately afterwards, Kirkaldy, Laird of Grange, approached, with eight armed men. They aroused the suspicion of the porter at the gate, but he was instantly stabbed and cast into the ditch. A few minutes later the party was within the walls of the castle. Its defenders and the workmen on the ramparts were turned out with surprising alacrity, and all the gates shut and guarded. The unusual noise aroused the cardinal from his bed, but he had taken only a few steps when his enemies entered the room and ruthlessly murdered him. Meanwhile the alarm was raised in the town. The common bell was rung. The cry running through the city that the castle was taken, the cardinal's friends came rushing forward to scale the walls and rescue him. "What have ye done with my Lord Cardinal ?" they cried. "Where is my Lord Cardinal? Have ye slain my Lord Cardinal? Let us see my Lord Cardinal." They that were within bade them go home, for the cardinal had received his reward and would trouble the world no more. The crowd still insisted on seeing him, and the cardinal's body was brought to the blockhouse head and lowered over the battlements by means of sheets tied to an arm and a leg. The terrified citizens recognized their mas

ter, and dispersed to their homes.

The determined band of conspirators who had slain the cardinal, joined by one hundred and fifty of their friends, succeeded in holding the castle of St. Andrews against the regent for more than a year. No attempt was made to reduce it until three months had passed, and then Arran laid siege to the castle. After several weeks' unavailing effort, he raised the siege

and departed. John Knox joined the garrison about ten months after the cardinal's death. In the end of June, 1547, a number of French galleys appeared off the coast, and the attack on the castle was renewed from the seaward side. This soon brought the defenders to submission. The garrison surrendered to the French commander, and were conveyed to France. A number, including the principal gentlemen, were distributed among various French prisons. The remainder, of whom John Knox was one, were confined on board the galleys. Here Knox, chained to his oar, lived and rowed as a galley slave for nearly two years. In 1549, he obtained his liberty, came to England, and preached at Berwick and Newcastle. He was appointed one of King Edward VI.'s chaplains in 1551. In March, 1554, he left England, and passed to Geneva.

Henry VIII. died in England in January, 1547, but his policy was continued after his death. As previously stated, he had wished for the betrothal of the infant queen of Scotland with his own son, Edward VI. Lord Hertford, Duke of Somerset, therefore proceeded with the invasion of Scotland which his master had begun in 1544. The Scots were reduced to great extremities. In September, 1547, the battle of Pinkie was fought near Edinburgh, which resulted in the disastrous defeat and rout of the Scottish army. Fourteen thousand Scots were slain in the pitiless carnage of this retreat. The next year, however, a French army of seven thousand men arrived to assist the Scotch. The young queen was sent to France, and thus one object of the war was removed. After many severe struggles, the Scots and French drove the English out of the castles, and recovered the southern part of the kingdom. Peace was finally concluded in 1550.

Toward the end of the summer of 1550, Adam Wallace, a man of humble rank from Ayrshire, was accused of heresy, condemned, and burned at Edinburgh. In England the period of persecution under Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain caused many Scotsmen who had formerly fled across the Border to return home. Knox also came back from Geneva in September, 1555, and preached zealously against the mass. Amongst the hearers who approved his doctrines were the Prior of St. Andrews, afterwards known as the Regent Moray, the Earl of Argyle (then Lord Lorne), and others.

The Romanists were alarmed, and Knox was summoned to appear at Edinburgh on May 15, 1556. He determined to appear, but when Erskine and other nobles who professed the new doctrines met in Edinburgh in force, the citation of Knox was abandoned. On the day that he should have appeared in court, he preached in Edinburgh to a larger audience than had ever listened to him. Soon after he was called to preach to the English congregation at Geneva, and returned to that place. After his departure the bishops again summoned him, and on Knox's failure to appear, they caused him to be burned in effigy at the Cross of Edinburgh.

But the reformed doctrines continued to spread. Among their most active advocates at this time were William Harlaw, John Willock, a native