History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution - Volume 2 by James MacCaffrey (ebook reader for surface pro TXT) 📕

address a letter to the regent calling upon her to open her mind for the reception of the truth.[13] By this public challenge, however, he overshot the mark, and not being gifted with any particular desire to suffer martyrdom for the faith, he left Scotland suddenly and retired to the Continent (1556). For years he was the leading spirit in many of the fierce and unseemly disputes between the English Protestant exiles in Geneva and Frankfurt. Although summoned more than once by his followers to return, he contented himself with sending them written exhortations to stand firm in the faith, or by publishing violent pamphlets such as /The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women/, in which he undertook to prove that the rule of women is repugnant to nature, contrary to God's ordinances, and subversive of good order, equity, and justice. Though this document was aimed principally against Catharine de' Medici, Queen Mary of England, and Mary of Guise regent of Scotland, it rankled in the mind of Queen Elizabeth after her accession, and did not serve to raise the apostle of Scotland in her estimation.

The Protestant lords, undeterred by the absence of Knox, decided to go forward with their programme. In December 1557 the Earl of Argyll, his son Lord Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, Erskine of Dun, and others, met at Edinburgh and signed a bond or covenant, by which they bound themselves solemnly to establish the "Blessed Word of God," to encourage preachers, to defend the new doctrines even with their lives, and to maintain the Congregation of Christ in opposition to the Congregation of Satan. They pledged themselves to introduce the Book of Common Prayer, to insist on the reading of portions of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue on Sundays and holidays, and to appoint preachers wherever the Catholic clergy were unable or unwilling to undertake this work.[14] In many districts, where the lords of the Congregation held sway, measures were taken at once to enforce these resolutions. Confronted with this revolutionary step, the regent and the bishops should have had recourse to strong action, but the former was so interested in the approaching marriage of her daughter to the Dauphin of France (1558) that she did not wish to offend the lords, while the primate, as one of the Hamiltons, disliked the regent because she had supplanted his brother, and contented himself with gentle admonitions. The lords, confident in their strength, met in November 1558, and presented a petition to the regent, in which they demanded that the members of the Congregation should be allowed to meet in the churches, and to follow their own ritual in the vulgar tongue, that Communion should be administered under both kinds, that private individuals should be at liberty to explain difficult passages of the Sacred Scriptures, and that the clergy should be reformed. The regent after consultation with the primate consented to these requests, at least in regard to private religious assemblies, but refused to yield to another petition demanding the abolition of all laws against heresy.[15]

The religious controversies became more and more embittered during the year 1559. The lords of the Congregation denounced the abuses of the clergy, demanded permission to use the vulgar tongue in all public religious services as well as in the administration of the sacraments, and insisted on the admission of the lower nobles and of the people to a voice in the appointment of bishops and of pastors. To put an end to the abuses that were proving such a useful weapon in the hands of the adversaries of the Church, and at the same time to give public and formal expression to the faith of the Scottish nation, a national synod[16] met at Edinburgh (April 1559). It denounced once again the awful scandal of concubinage among the clergy, laid down useful regulations regarding preaching and the appointment of bishops, condemned plurality of benefices, nonresidence, and demands on the part of the clergy for excessive fees. To raise the standard of education among the clergy it ordained that those presented to benefices should be examined, and that each monastery should maintain some of its members at the universities. In its profession of faith the synod emphasised the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Transubstantiation, the propitiatory character of the sacrifice of the Mass, the sufficiency of Communion in one kind, the existence of a real priesthood, and purgatory, prayers for the dead, invocation of the saints, fasting, and holidays. In response to the demands of the Congregation the synod pointed out that it had not the power to change the rites and ceremonies that had been handed down for centuries, that as the Church was the definitely appointed guardian and interpreter of the Scriptures private individuals were not permitted to expound them at their will, and that in the appointment of bishops and pastors the rules laid down in canon law were quite sufficient to prevent abuses if only they were followed.

About the same time Quintin Kennedy, Benedictine Abbot of Crossraguel, conferred an immense service on religion by his written apology[17] for the Catholic Church. Starting with the Bible and its relation to ecclesiastical authority, he undertook to show that from the very nature of the case such a book required the presence of a divinely appointed official interpreter, that the reading of the Scriptures was not necessary for salvation though in many cases it might be useful, and that the authority of the Church should not be overthrown even though the existence of scandals among churchmen could not be denied. Turning to his adversaries, he demanded what was the source of all the abuses and scandals which they charged against the Church? Was it not, he asked, the unwarrantable interference of the nobles in the nominations to ecclesiastical benefices, an interference that was responsible for having even children who were too young to hold an apple in their hands appointed to the charge of populous parishes, in order that the relatives of these children might grow rich on the revenues, and was it not the very men who were guilty of such conduct who were loudest in their denunciation of the Church? On the nobles he laid the blame for oppressing the Church, for introducing unworthy ecclesiastics into offices of trust, for depriving the poor of instruction and education, and for promoting thereby heresy and revolution.

As the year (1559) advanced the state of affairs in Scotland became daily more alarming. Preachers were everywhere at work under the protection of the lords. The regent and the French authorities, who had shown a fatal apathy in their dealings with Scottish heretics, began to wake up to the political danger involved in such a movement. A French agent, M. Béthencourt,[18] arrived in Scotland in April 1559, and, whether it was due to his advice or not, the regent forbade the preachers to continue their disturbances. On their refusal to submit she summoned them to appear at Stirling for trial (10th May). Encouraged by the return of Knox who had landed at Leith early in the same month, and by the armed forces placed at their disposal by some of their principal patrons, they refused to attend and were outlawed. A number of the reforming lords immediately took possession of Perth, and destroyed several Catholic churches in the city. When news of this rising reached the regent she assembled her forces and marched against Perth, but as neither side was anxious for civil war at the time, a truce was agreed upon, and the forces of the regent were allowed to occupy the town. From Perth the reforming lords retreated to St. Andrew's, where they burned and destroyed the altars, pictures, statues, and even the sacred vessels used for religious worship. The abbey church of Scone, in which a long line of Scottish kings had been crowned, was destroyed; Perth and Stirling were seized, and before the end of June 1559 Edinburgh was in the hands of the lords of the Congregation. The regent issued an appeal in the name of the king and queen of Scotland calling upon all loyal subjects to defend the government against the revolutionary Congregation, but her unfortunate preference for French soldiers and officials gave the Protestant lords the advantage of enabling them to pose as patriots engaged in the defence of their country against foreigners. They were forced, however, to capitulate and to surrender Edinburgh to the regent (26th July).

Early in this same month (1559) Henry II. of France died, and was succeeded by Francis II., the husband of Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth and her advisers were alarmed at the prospect that opened before them. Mary Queen of Scots, as the nearest legitimate heir to the English throne, was a dangerous neighbour, especially at a time when England was thrown into confusion by a new religious revolution, and when English Catholics might rally to her standard with the blessing of the Pope and of the Kings of France and Spain. Even though the Queen of Scotland did not resort to extremes, the very existence of a Catholic kingdom in Scotland, united by bonds of friendship and interest to France, constituted a grave danger for England; whereas if Scotland could be induced to accept the Protestant religion and to throw in its lot with its southern neighbour, the enemies of England on the Continent might rage in vain. The rebellion of the lords of the Congregation was, therefore, very welcome to Elizabeth and to Cecil. It gave them an opportunity of interfering in Scottish affairs, not, indeed, in the untactful manner in which Henry VIII. had interfered, but as the apparent defenders of Scottish independence against a French protectorate. On this occasion Scottish patriotism was to be made subservient to English political aims and at the same time to Protestant interests.

The lords of the Congregation, realising that without assistance they could never hope to overcome the regent, turned to England for support. Their petitions were welcomed by Cecil and the leading counsellors of Elizabeth, but the queen herself distrusted Knox, and disliked allying herself with open rebels. To give the movement an appearance of constitutionalism the young Earl of Arran, who had been brought to France and who had secretly embraced Calvinism, was induced to make his escape into England. As a near claimant to the Scottish throne he was welcomed at the English court, and was led to believe that if he acted prudently he might become the husband of Elizabeth, and the king of a united England and Scotland. He was dispatched into Scotland, where he succeeded in detaching his father, the Duke of Châtelherault, and several other nobles from the side of the regent. Relying on the protection of England, from which a plentiful supply of money was dispatched to the rebels, and on the new accessions to their ranks, the lords of the Congregation announced the suspension of the regent from her office (Oct. 1559) though they hesitated to take the further step of proclaiming the Earl of Arran or Lord James Stuart sovereign of Scotland. The regent replied to this act of rebellion by marching on Edinburgh, forcing the rebels to retreat to Stirling (Nov.), while the Earl of Bothwell seized large sums of money that were being forwarded to the rebel camp from England. The English advisers began to realise that money and secret assistance were not enough to secure the triumph of the Congregation in Scotland, and that the time had come when more decisive measures must be taken.

In December 1559 and January 1560, an armed force was dispatched to the north, and Admiral Winter was commanded to blockade the Forth against a French fleet. A little later a formal agreement was concluded between the Duke of Norfolk representing Elizabeth, and Lord James Stuart the commissioner for the Congregation. At first it was