(1542 — MARCH 1543.)
THE political and religious events in the midst of which James V. had been taken from Scotland were of so grave a character that the wisest heads felt some alarm, and expected to see a storm break forth such as no one had ever seen the like. f265 An unexpected blow, considering the youthful years of the prince, had fallen on the nation. With eyes fixed on the future, nobles and people talked together of their fears and the faintness of their hopes. f266 In the Lowlands, in the heart of the Highlands, at Edinburgh, at Glasgow, at Stirling, and in other towns of Scotland, men with pale faces and a restless air were questioning one another in distress of mind about the fate in reserve for their country. The shameful defeat at Solway, which had given the king his deathblow, had filled the people with mourning and dread. The most illustrious lords of Scotland, taken prisoners by the English, had been exposed to the gaze of the citizens of London. Those who still remained in Scotland were divided by implacable hatred, and by religious views diametrically opposed to each other; and it was anticipated that dissensions long suppressed by the fear of the king would now burst forth. The cardinal and the bishops, giving themselves up without restraint to their passion for dominion, were going to take advantage of the death of James to bring the people into subjection. Henry VIII., glowing in the unexpected victory which he had just won, did not fail, now that his nephew was no more, to turn to account (and in what a fashion!) his pretensions to Scotland. For maintaining order in the country there was a queen eight days old. The next heir to the crown after her, Hamilton, earl of Arran, was not fitted by his virtues, or his intelligence, or his courage to rule the people. Many destructive agencies were at work in Scotland; loud
lamentations were heard. One thing alone could save the country — the Gospel.
The king being dead, it appeared to Beatoun that the public troubles offered him a favorable opportunity for becoming master, for securing the triumph of the French party, for abolishing the Reformation, and
establishing the supremacy of the clergy. Since Scotland was abased, he was to be exalted. It was needful to act quickly. The nobles who were recently made prisoners, and those who had for a long time lived in exile in England, were about to return. The cardinal knew well that they detested his subservience to the pope, his ambition, and his arrogance; and he had no doubt that they would vigorously oppose him. The earl of Arran, next heir after Mary to the crown, was it is true in Scotland, and seemed to be called to make head against him; but the haughty cardinal made little account of that. The earl is unambitious, said he; he has no energy, and all his wish is to have nothing to do. Besides, Arran was his near relation, a son of one of his aunts. f267 The king had scarcely breathed his last when the cardinal went boldly to the queen-mother at Linlithgow, fortified with the document on which he assumed to found his pretensions. ‘Welcome, my lord,’ said the queen, who as yet knew nothing more than the serious illness of her husband; is not the king dead?’ Mary of Guise supposed that the first prelate of the kingdom was come solely to announce to her the sovereign’s death. But Beatoun had another end in view in this visit.
Without loss of time he produced the king’s testament containing the nomination of a regency composed of the cardinal and the earls of Argyle, Huntley, and Murray, the first-named to be president of the council and guardian to the royal infant. This document was generally considered to have been extorted from the dying king. Many persons even believed that the cardinal’s agent had guided the hand of the dead king, and obtained a signature in blank which the cardinal had afterwards filled up at his own will. Buchanan states that the cardinal, having gained over a certain priest named Balfour, had with his assistance forged a false testament. Knox, Sadler, and Lesley also speak in the same way. f268 At the market-cross at Edinburgh the cardinal had proclamation made, on the Monday after the king’s death, of the alleged deed which made the first personage in the realm.
Many of the Scots were indignant at this ceeding, and said openly that both the regency the guardianship of the infant Mary belonged to Hamilton, earl of Arran, who, as next heir to the crown through his grandmother, the daughter of James II., would be king, it was said, if the princess should chance to die. Had not her two brothers died in their infancy? The general hatred of the cardinal, and the horror felt at the thought of living under the government of a priest, impelled a large number of people to support the cause of Hamilton. ‘Occasion offers herself to you,’ they said to him; ‘do not let her pass.’ The laird of Grange
especially urged this noble to maintain his rights. But Arran, for want of spirit, was ready to abandon them. It was at last determined to call together the nobility of the realm, that they might decide to whose hands the government should be entrusted during the minority. The nobles met on the appointed day. The cardinal and his partisans resisted with all their might the proposal to commit the govermnent of the realm to the earl of Arran. ‘The Hamiltons,’ said they, are cruel murderers, oppressors of innocents, proud, avaricious, double and false, and finally, the pestilence in this commonwealth.’ Arran had, indeed, given himself up to the
domination of dishonorable men, However, he remained calm, and contemned these insults. ‘Call me what you please,’ replied he, ‘defraud me not of my right. Whatever my friends have been, yet unto this day has no man cause to complain upon me. Neither yet am I minded to flatter my friends in their evil doing, but by God’s grace shall be forward to correct their enormities. Therefore yet again, my lord, in God’s name I crave that ye do me no wrong, nor defraud me of my just title before ye have experience of my government.’ This appeal touched the hearers, and all cried out that unless the fear of God and his righteousness were trampled under foot, the claim of Arran could not be rejected. He was therefore proclaimed governor of Scotland, in spite of Beatoun; and the king’s palace, his treasures, his jewels, and other chattels of the crown were delivered up to him by the officials who had charge of them. This took place on January 10, a few days after the cardinal’s proclamation.
Arran, it is true, was not distinguished for his virtues nor for his
intelligence, but he was very generally liked, as weak men often are. ‘The earl of Arran,’ wrote Lord Lisle to Henry VIII.,’is himself a good soft God’s man, and loveth well to look on the Scripture, but he hath many
that ruleth about him of his kin which be shrewd and evil men.’ f269 Never had any regent been received with so much liking and hope, and this was the case especially because people were glad to be delivered from the cardinal. It was thought that he would reform all that went wrong in church or state, and his first acts corresponded with this hope. f270 That Arran should thus get possession of power was astonishing, for he was as weak as Beatoun was strong, and the weakest, they say, always goes to the wall. In this case the reverse happened. But many people thought that the arrangement would be only temporary. Arran was the earthen pot of the fable, Beatoun the iron pot, and it was not difficult to foresee which the two would break the other. It was not before Arran gave a proof of his too easy temper instead of adopting measures for withdrawing the realm from the influence of Beatoun, as soon as th latter claimed to be made chancellor of Scotland, Arran committed that office to his hands, in order to alleviate the disgrace to which the assembly of nobles had just subjected him. f271 The ambitious cardinal, however, did not long keep that post of influence.
Many eminent and pious men supported the cause of the earl of Arran.
One of his first acts was appoint as his chaplains, on the recommendation of those supporters, two ministers who preached pure Gospel. A former Dominican, Thomas Guillaume (or Williams), who had been very eminent his order, having been converted by the Word of God, had thrown off his cowl. He was called to preach at Edinburgh. The soundness of his
judgment, purity of his doctrine, the force of his eloquence, and the
clearness of his exposition of Scripture, together with a certain moderation in controversy, attracted crowds to his preaching. The regent associated with him another evangelical minister, John Rough. He had entered a convent at seventeen years of age, had twice visited Rome, and having been painfully shocked by what he had seen there, he had embraced the Reformation. Less of a scholar than Guillaume, he was more simple- minded, and more ardent against superstition and impiety, and against the authority of the pope. Arran, urged on by his evangelical friends, sent his faithful ministers into various parts of the kingdom. Among their
numerous hearers was Knox, and it was while listening to Guillaume that the great reformer began to be acquainted with the beauty of evangelical truth. f272
But while those who had their hearts opened to the truth received with joy the words of the two chaplains, the monks, the priests, and all the friends of the papacy attacked them vehemently. ‘Heresy! heresy!’ cried a
Franciscan named Scot; ‘Guillaume and Rough will carry the governor unto the devil.’ And all the monks and sacristans took up the cry, ‘Heresy!’ A man named Watson, of the household of the bishop of Dunkeld, composed a satirical ballad against the chaplains and the regent which had a great vogue. The cardinal on his part was moving heaven and earth, and worried Arran to silence the two preachers. ‘All these men,’ says Knox, ‘roupit [croaked] as they had been ravens, yea rather they yelled and roared as devils in hell.’ For the moment, these cries were futile. The divine Word prevailed.
While these things were passing in Scotland, Henry VIII. was fully occupied in England. The death of James had startled him, and his first thought had been that the succession must fall to him. He would unite the two kingdoms, and it would be an immense advantage to Great Britain to be all under one government, and that his own. To this end a marriage should be concluded between his son Edward, aged five years, and the young Queen of Scotland aged a few days. He lost no time in sending for the most notable of the Scottish captives to Hampton Court palace, where he was then residing. The earls of Cassilis and Glencairn, and the Lords Maxwell, Fleming, and Grey, men who only a few days before had been made a spectacle to the populace of London, appeared before him. He stated to them his project. ‘God,’ said he, ‘now offers you a most favorable occasion for establishing agreement and peace in Great Britain.
Let a contract be concluded between your queen and my son. I offer to set you at liberty if you will pledge yourselves to do all you can to get the consent of the regent and of the nobles of Scotland to this marriage.’ The project highly pleased the lords, for they saw in it a certain means of obtaining not only liberty for themselves, but a lasting peace for their country. Agreement was made that the Queen Mary should marry the prince Edward when she was ten years old. After this conference the noble prisoners set out, December 29, on their way to Scotland, to secure the success of their scheme.
Henry, however, did not yet feel himself secure, and he wanted to have the young queen in his own hands and some others with her. He had no
confidence in Scotland, knowing how easily she might tack about: and he was afraid of the cardinal’s cleverness. Consequently, on January 9 he wrote to viscount Lisle, then lord warden of the military frontiers of England. ‘It is essential,’ said he, ‘to get the child, the person of the
cardinal, and of such as be chief lettes of our purpose, and also of the chief holds and fortresses into our hands.’ f273 Henry’s fears were without foundation. At the moment of James’s death everyone foreboded a war with the powerful of England. But the Scottish lords whom Henry had set at liberty arrived on January 24. They were accompanied by the earl of Angus and his brother, Sir George Douglas, who had long endured the life of exiles in England. These lords hastened to fulfill the commission of Henry VIII. On their admission to the council, of which the regent was president, they laid before it the proposal of marriage between the heirs of the two crowns. The earl of Arran and the great majority of the members of the council appeared to be favorable to it; but the cardinal, supported by the queen-mother, strenuously opposed it. In their judgment nothing was more dangerous for Scotland, nothing could be more offensive to France and to Rome. Now Mary of Guise and Beatoun were the
representatives of these powers. The more chance there seemed to be of the adoption of the proposal by the council, the more Beatoun struggled and the more vehement the resistance he offered to it: He incessantly interrupted the debate: he put questions to other members: he thus hindered them from speaking and made the taking of votes altogether impossible. f274 The majority of the council revolted against conduct so unparliamentary, which did not allow them the free exercise of their right.
The other members, and especially the Scots who were just come from England, were indignant. The latter conceived a bold design which did not occur to anyone else. They would turn the cardinal’s insolence to account in getting him wholly set aside. It was proposed that Beatoun should be excluded from the assembly and confined in an apartment of the palace until the votes had been collected. This plan was at once voted and carried out. f275 ‘What a blot for this proud priest! He, primate, cardinal, legate of Rome, the most important personage of the realm as he thought, to find himself excluded from the council and treated as a prisoner! He was not ever to regain his liberty very soon. Never, perhaps, had any assembly struck so unlooked-for a blow. The Scottish lords had arrived January 24, and the discussion and exclusion of the cardinal certainly took place on the
25th or 26th. The prelate was removed to the prison at Dalkeith. f276 The earls of Huntley, Murray, and Bothwell demanded his liberation and offered themselves as his bail, but they did not succeed in obtaining it. The voting resulted in a resolution in favor of the marriage and of the union with England; it only remained for parliament to confirm it.
The Scottish lords who had returned from England, above all the earl of Angus and his brother, had learnt during their sojourn in London not to spare the cardinals and other Romish dignitaries. The stormy presumption of the cardinal in the council had been the occasion of the measure adopted against him; but these lords perfectly understood that unless the cardinal were kept in confinement there could be no religious nor even civil liberty in the land. ‘It is not possible,’ says Calvin, ‘to deprive an able and powerful tyrant of his supremacy except by first taking away his arms and bringing against him a force superior to his own. He will never quit his post of his own accord.’ f277 Sir George Douglas, brother of Angus, went to Berwick where Lord Lisle was stationed, and pointed out to him that in sending the cardinal to prison they had given him certain proof of their activity. Lisle immediately reported it to the Duke of Suffolk, brother-in- law of Henry VIII. f278 All the friends of the Gospel, and even the Scottish political party, looked on that measure as a great deliverance. Beatoun, however, was not surrendered to Henry VIII., as he had required him to be.
It is hardly possible to imagine the effect produced in Scotland by this bold deed. The bishops and the priests as soon as they heard of the extraordinary proceeding were beside themselves. All the clergy, struck with horror, at once adopted the same course as they would have done if Scotland were laid under an interdict by the pope. The churches were closed, religious services were suspended, and the priests refused to discharge any of their functions. One might have conjectured that some appalling crime had been committed, and that the whole nation was excommunicated. A funereal veil hung over Scotland. The Romish clergy accused those who laid hands on the cardinal not only of injustice but of sacrilege. The people, submissive in some place, to the bidding of their priests, and even many lords; cried out with the others. Argyle left Edinburgh and retired to his estates, and assembled his clan. Lord Lisle
wrote to London, February 1, ‘Since the cardinal was seized, no one in Scotland can get a priest to sing masse, to christen or bury.’ f279
The Scottish Parliament was to open at Easter, and the moment was approaching. Instead of one there would be (so to speak) two parliaments.
The party of the opposition, the earls of Huntley, Argyle, Murray, and Bothwell, a very great number of barons, knights, bishops, and abbots, met at Perth a week before the day of convocation, and having drawn up certain articles, they sent them to the regent and council by the hands of the bishop of Orkney and John Campbell, uncle to the earl of Argyle. Let the cardinal, they said, be set at liberty; let the New Testmnent be
interdicted; let the regent confer with us on all affairs of the realm, and let other ambassadors be sent to the King of England, charged with a quite different mission from that which has been determined on. The regent by the advice of his council declined to accede to ‘demands so unreasonable.’
The next step, immediately taken, was to send a herald-at-arms to Perth, to summon the lords who were there to Edinburgh, under penalty of treason, to discharge their duties. This citation took effect; The earl of Murray, the bishops, and abbots arrived on the eve of the opening of parliament. The other lords presented themselves later. Argyle alone remained on his estates. His two uncles, however, offered excuse for him, on the ground of ill health. f280
Parliament opened on Monday, March 12. The assembly was numerous, for the gravity of the occasion was universally understood. ‘This
parliament,’ said the car1 of Angus, ‘is the most substantial that was ever seen in Scotland; the three estates are present in great force, and the multitude of on-lookers is so great that no more could find lodging in the two towns of Edinburgh and Leith.’ The first resolution of this important assembly approved the marriage of prince Edward and the little Queen Mary, and empowered ambassadors to negotiate it with England. f281 The second resolution (Tuesday) was the confirmation of the earl of Arran in the office of regent. On Wednesday the earl of Angus and his brother were reinstated in the honors and the estates of which they had been deprived during their fifteen years’ exile. On Thursday the most important of all the resolutions of this body was to be presented and debated.