<44>When Elizabeth died, one great question was already pressing for solution — the question of the relationship between 1603.The question of toleration.the national Church and the dissidents on either hand — which was destined to agitate the minds of men as long as Stuart kings reigned in England. It was a question to which the successor of Elizabeth was not altogether a stranger, though his mode of dealing with it in Scotland gave little reason to hope that he would deal successfully with it in England.
In many respects the aspect of Scotland in the sixteenth century was the reverse of that of England. The most remarkable feature of Elizabethan England was the harmony which resulted from the interdependence upon one another of the various elements of which the national life was composed. 1560–1572.Contrast between England and Scotland.To the north of the Tweed, the same elements for the most part reappeared; but they were seen standing out sharp and clear, in well-defined contrast to one another. The clergy were more distinctly clerical, the boroughs more isolated and self-contained, and, above all, the nobles retained the old turbulence of feudalism which had long ceased to be tolerated in any other country in Europe.
When the Reformation first passed over Scotland, there was a momentary prospect of a change which might to some extent obliterate the existing distinctions, and give rise to a real national union. Noble and burgher, rich and poor, joined <45>with the preachers in effecting the overthrow of the medieval Church; and it was by no means the intention of Knox’s views of Church government.Knox and his fellow-labourers to erect a new hierarchy upon the ruins of the old. According to their theory, there was to be no longer any distinction between the laity and the clergy, excepting so far as the latter were set apart for the performance of peculiar duties. Of the forty-two persons who took their seats in the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland only six were ministers. Barons and earls were admitted to its consultations without any election at all. So far as the first Reformers had any distinct idea of the nature of the Assembly which they had called into being, they intended it to be a body in which the nation should be represented by those who were its natural leaders, as well as by those who had a closer connection with ecclesiastical affairs.
Such a scheme as this, however, was doomed to failure from the first. Here and there might be found individuals amongst Desertion of the Church by the high nobility.the high nobility who gave themselves heart and soul to the Church of the Reformation, but, for the most part, the earls and lords were satisfied as soon as they had gorged themselves with the plunder of the abbey lands. They had no idea of meeting on terms of equality with the humble ministers, and they cared little or nothing for the progress of the Gospel. Nor was it indifference alone which kept these powerful men aloof: they had an instinctive feeling that the system to which they owed their high position was doomed, and that it was from the influence which the preachers were acquiring that immediate danger was to be apprehended to their own position. A great Scottish nobleman, in fact, was a very different personage from the man who was called by a similar title in England. He exercised little less than sovereign authority over his own district. Possessed of the power of life and death within its limits, his vassals looked up to him as the only man to whom they were accountable for their actions. They were ready to follow him into the field at his bidding, and they were seldom long allowed to remain at rest. There was always some quarrel to be engaged in, some neighbouring lord to be attacked, or some hereditary insult to be avenged.
<46>With the physical force which was at the disposal of the aristocracy, the ministers were for the time unable to cope. But they had on their side Strength of the ministers.that energy of life which is certain, sooner or later, to translate itself into power. It was not merely that, with scarcely an exception, all the intellect of Scotland was to be found in their ranks; their true strength lay in the undeviating firmness with which they bore witness for the law of God as the basis of all human action, and the vigorous and self-denying activity with which they called upon all who would listen to them to shake off the bonds of impurity and vice. How was it possible that there should long be agreement between the men whose whole lives were stained with bloodshed and oppression, and the men who were struggling, through good repute and evil repute, to reduce to order the chaos in which they lived, and to make their native country a land of godliness and peace?
The compromise to which the nobility came with the ministers at Leith, in 1572, was for the aristocracy one of those The Tulchan Bishops.apparent victories which give a certain presage of future defeat. Sorely against their will, the clergy were driven to consent to the institution of a Protestant Episcopate. The burghs and the lesser gentry were no match for the vassals of the great lords, and they were compelled to give way. But it was not a concession which did any credit to those to whom it had been made. They had not one single thought to spare for the country, or for the Church of whose interests they were thus summarily disposing. All they cared about was the wealth which might be gained by the scheme which they had adopted. The Bishops were to be duly consecrated, not in order that they might take part in that government of the clergy which is assigned to them in Episcopalian churches, but in order that they might have some legal title to hand over the greater part of their revenues to the nobles to whom they owed their sees. From that moment Episcopacy was a doomed institution in Scotland. It was impossible for any man to submit to become a Bishop without losing every remnant of the self-respect which he might originally have possessed. The moral strength which Presbyterianism gained <47>from this compromise was incalculable. It soon became the earnest belief of all who were truthful and independent in the nation, that the Presbyterian system was the one divinely appointed mode of Church government, from which it was Doctrine of the Divine right of Presbyterianism.sinful to deviate in the slightest degree. Whatever credit must be given to Andrew Melville for his share in producing this conviction, it is certain that the disreputable spectacle of the new Episcopacy was far more effective than any arguments which he was able to use.
In 1581 the Second Book of Discipline received the approval of the General Assembly. By it the Church pronounced 1581.The Second Book of Discipline.its unqualified acceptance of those Presbyterian institutions which, with some slight modifications, finally overcame all opposition, and have maintained themselves to the present day. During the years which had passed since the introduction of the Reformation, the Assembly was becoming less national, and more distinctly ecclesiastical. Its strength lay in the fact that it represented all that was best and noblest in Scotland, and that its Church Courts gave a political education to the lower and middle classes, which they could never find in the Scottish Parliament. Its weakness lay in the inevitable tendency of such a body to push principles to extremes, and to erect a tyranny over men’s consciences in order to compel them to the observance of moral and ecclesiastical laws. The censures of the Church fell heavily as well upon the man who kept away from church on the Lord’s Day, as on the loose-liver and the drunkard. Under the eye of the minister of the parish, the kirk-session gathered to inflict penalties on offenders, and in the kirk-session no regard was paid to worldly rank. The noblemen, who disdained to meet pious cobblers and craftsmen on an equal footing, naturally kept aloof from such gatherings.
That the Presbyterian assemblies should become political institutions, was probably unavoidable. To them the Political character of the Assemblies.Calvinistically interpreted Bible was the Divine rule of life. Kings and nobles were to be honoured and obeyed, so far as they conformed to it, and devoted their lives to the carrying out its principles in practice. <48>If they did not — and of their failure to do so the clergy were to be the sole interpreters — it was the duty of the Church, as in the Middle Ages it had been held to be the duty of the Popes, to withstand them to the face. Presbyterianism did not ask merely to be let alone to pursue its spiritual course unhindered, it asked that the authorities of the State should become its instruments for the establishment upon earth of a kingdom as like that of heaven as it was possible to attain to. Of individual liberty, of the manifold luxuriance of human nature, Presbyterianism knew nothing; but it did much to encourage resistance to the arbitrary power of rulers. It set its face like a flint against any assumption of Divine right, except by its own assemblies. It called upon kings to conform their actions to a definite law. If kings were to master it, it could only be by an appeal to a law wider and more consonant to the facts of nature than its own.
It was inevitable that the Scottish Church at the end of the sixteenth century should entangle itself, not merely in questions relating to the enforcement of the ecclesiastical law, but even in strictly political questions. In those days every religious question was also a political one, and the compact organisation of the Scottish Church enabled it to throw no slight weight into the scale. With a wild, defiant feudalism surging around, and an enraged Catholic Europe ready to take advantage of any breach in the defences of Protestantism, the Scottish Church felt that every political movement involved a question of life or death for the nation of which it was in some sort the representative.
If, indeed, the ministers who guided the assemblies, and through them the various congregations, could have had the assurance that their Sovereign was a man whom they could trust, much mischief might have been spared. Character of James.James VI. indeed had many qualities befitting a ruler in such difficult times. Good-humoured and good-natured, he was honestly desirous of increasing the prosperity of his subjects. His mental powers were of no common order; his memory was good, and his learning, especially on theological points, was by no means contemptible. He was intellectually <49>tolerant, anxious to be at peace with those whose opinions differed from his own. He was above all things eager to be a reconciler, to make peace where there had been war before, and to draw those to live in harmony who had hitherto glared at one another in mutual defiance. He was penetrated with a strong sense of the evil of fanaticism.
These merits were marred by grave defects. He was too self-confident to give himself the pains to unravel a difficult problem, and had too weak a perception of the proportional value of things to enable him to grasp the important points of a case to the exclusion of those which were merely subsidiary. With a thorough dislike of dogmatism in others, he was himself the most dogmatic of men, and — most fatal of all defects in a ruler — he was ready to conceive the worst of those who stood up against him. He had none of that generosity of temper which leads the natural leaders of the human race to rejoice when they have found a worthy antagonist, nor had he, as Elizabeth had, that intuitive perception of the popular feeling which stood her in such stead during her long career. Warmly affectionate to those with whom he was in daily intercourse, he never attached himself to any man who was truly great. He mistook flattery for devotion, and though his own life was pure, he contrived to surround himself with those of whose habits there was no good report. It was easy for his favourites to abuse his good-nature, provided that they took care not to wound his self-complacency. Whoever would put on an appearance of deference, and would avoid contradicting him on the point on which he happened to have set his heart at the moment, might lead him anywhere.
Unhappily, when James grew up to manhood, he was in the hands of unworthy favourites, who taught him the lesson Position of James.that the clergy were his true enemies. These favourites were known to be acting under the influence of the French Court, and it was strongly suspected that they were likely to favour the re-establishment of the Papal system by the help of foreign armies. Under such circumstances, the struggle in which the clergy were engaged speedily assumed a new form: it was no longer a question whether the property of the <50>Church should be simoniacally conveyed away to a few degraded nominees of the nobility: it was a question whether, in the hour of Scotland’s danger, free words might be spoken to warn the misguided King of the ruin which he was allowing his favourites to prepare for himself and for his subjects.
James determined to make the ministers feel that force was still on his side. He knew that the greater part of the 1584.The restoration of jurisdiction to the Bishops.nobility would concur with pleasure in any measure which served to depress the clergy, and in 1584 he obtained from Parliament the Acts by which the whole government of the Church was placed in the hands of the Bishops.
For two years the struggle lasted between the King and the clergy, with various fortunes. As the end of that time 1586.James more friendly to the ministers.James could not help perceiving that his opponents were, in some degree, in the right. In 1586 the King of Spain was making preparations for the invasion of England: and if the throne of Elizabeth were overturned, Scotland could hardly hope to escape destruction. James had no wish to become a vassal of Spain and of the Pope, and he entered into a league with England for mutual defence against the enemy by whom both kingdoms were threatened. Such a change of policy naturally removed the principal obstacles to a reconciliation between the King and the clergy, and though it was impossible that any cordial sympathy should spring up between them, that kind of agreement existed which is frequently found between persons of a dissimilar temperament who are united in the pursuit of a common object. In spite of constant bickerings the King, step by step, relaxed his pretensions, and at last, in 1592, gave his consent to an Act by which Presbyterianism was established in its integrity.
It was unlikely that this unanimity would last long. The quarrel, however, sprang up again sooner than might have been expected. Early in 1593 1593.Defeat of the northern earls by James.a conspiracy was detected, in which the Earls of Huntly, Errol, and Angus were implicated. Like so many others of the nobility, they had never accepted the Protestant doctrines, and their great power in the north-eastern shires made them <51>almost unassailable. If they had been let alone they would probably have remained contented with their position, caring as little for the King of Spain as they did for the King of Scotland. But the ministers were bent upon the total extirpation of Popery, and the earls were led to place their hopes in a Spanish invasion. Such an invasion would free them from the assaults of a religion which was perhaps quite as unacceptable to them from its political consequences as from the theological doctrines which it propounded. James, when he discovered what was passing, marched at once into the North, and drove the earls headlong out of their domains.
With one voice the clergy cried out for the forfeiture of the lands of the rebels, and for harsh measures against the Catholics. He hesitates to make full use of his victory.James, on his part, hung back from taking such steps as these. Even if he had the will, it may be doubted whether he had the power to carry out the wishes of the ministers. The nobles who had led their vassals against Huntly and his confederates might be willing enough to render a Spanish invasion impossible, but they would hardly have looked on with complacency at the destruction of these great houses, in which they would have seen a precedent which might afterwards be used against themselves.[17] Nor was the power of the earls themselves such as to be overthrown by a single defeat; every vassal on their broad domains was attached to them by ties far stronger than those which bound him to his Sovereign; and if their land were confiscated, many years would pass before <52>the new owners could expect to live in safety without the support of a powerful military force.
It can hardly be supposed, indeed, that James was influenced by no other motives than these. He was probably unwilling to crush a power which served to counterbalance that of the ministers, and he lent a ready ear to the solicitations of the courtiers who were around him. The earls were once more too strong to be put down without another war. At last he declared that they were to receive a full pardon for all that was past, but, that they, as well as all other Catholics in Scotland, must either embrace the Protestant faith or leave the kingdom. If they chose the latter alternative they were to be allowed to retain their possessions during their exile.
Such an award as this drew down upon the King the wrath of both parties. The ministers reviled it as over-lenient to Popery, 1594.Huntly and Errol driven into exile.and the Catholics looked upon it as an act of intolerable persecution. Huntly and Errol refused to accept the terms, and succeeded in defeating the troops which were sent against them under the Earl of Argyle. Upon receiving the news of this disaster James once more marched into the north, the ministers having supported him with the money of which he was in need. The success of the Royal arms was immediate. All resistance was crushed at once, and the earls themselves were forced to take refuge on the Continent.
This victory may be considered to be the turning-point of James’s reign in Scotland. It established decisively not only that Importance of the King’s victory.the nation was determined to resist foreign interference, but that the King had now a national force at his disposal which even the greatest of the nobility were unable to resist. The Scottish aristocracy would long be far too powerful for the good of their fellow-countrymen, but they would no longer be able to beard their Sovereign with impunity.
In the summer of 1596, Huntly and Errol were once more in Scotland. 1596.Return of Huntly and Errol.But this time they did not come to levy war upon the King; they were content to skulk in various hiding-places till they could receive permission to present themselves before him.
<53>James was not disinclined to listen to their overtures. To drive the earls to the last extremity would be to ruin the work of pacification which he had so successfully accomplished. He had no wish to undertake a crusade in which he would find little assistance from any but the ministers and their supporters, and which would raise against him a feeling in the whole of the North of Scotland which might cause him no little trouble in the event of a contest arising for the English succession. On the other hand, he may well have thought that the earls had now learned that they were no longer capable of measuring themselves against their Sovereign, and that they would in future refrain from any treasonable undertakings.
These views, which were justified by the event, and in which he was supported by the statesmen by whom he was now surrounded, were not likely to find much favour with the clergy. Towards the end of August, a convention of the Estates was Convention at Falkland.held at Falkland to consider what course was to be taken; and certain ministers who, as it is said, were likely to give a favourable reply, were summoned to declare their opinions. Amongst them, Andrew Melville presented himself, uninvited. He was the Presbyterian leader of the day, with a mind narrower than that of Knox, the champion of a system rather than a spiritual guide. He had come, he said, in the name of Christ Jesus the King, and his Church, to charge James and the Estates with favouring the enemies of both. Those who were present paid little heed to such objections as these, and gave it as their opinion, that if the earls would satisfy the King and the Church, it would be well to restore them to their estates.
Upon hearing what had passed, the Commissioners of the General Assembly, who were appointed to watch over the interests of the Church, Meeting of the ministers at Cupar.during the intervals between the meetings of that body, invited a number of ministers to assemble at Cupar. These ministers, as soon as they had met together, determined to send a deputation to the King. This deputation was admitted to his presence; but when they began to lay their complaints before him, he <54>interrupted them by questioning their authority to meet without a warrant from himself. Upon this, Melville, who was one of the deputation, seized him by the sleeve, and calling him ‘God’s silly vassal,’ Melville and the King.told him, in tones which must long have rung in his ears, there were two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: “There is Christ Jesus the King,” he said, “and his kingdom the Church, whose subject King James VI. is, and of whose kingdom not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. And they whom Christ has called and commanded to watch over his Church, and govern his spiritual kingdom, have sufficient power of him and authority so to do, both together and severally; the which no Christian King nor Prince should control and discharge, but fortify and assist.” He concluded by saying that the King’s wish to be served by all sorts of men, Jew and Gentile, Papist and Protestant, was devilish and pernicious. He was attempting to balance the Protestants and the Papists, in order that he might keep them both in check. By such a plan as this, he would end by losing both.[18]
There was enough of truth in all this to make it tell upon the King. It is highly probable that the scheme which Melville thus dragged out to the light had more to do with his conduct towards the earls than any enlightened views on the subject of toleration. He was now frightened at Melville’s vehemence, and promised that nothing should be done for the returned rebels till they had once more left the country, and had satisfied the Church.
On October 20, the Commissioners of the General Assembly met at Edinburgh. They immediately wrote to all the presbyteries in Scotland, The Commissioners at Edinburgh.informing them that the earls had returned, with the evident purpose of putting down and massacring the followers of the Gospel, and that it was probable that the King would take them under his protection. Under these circumstances, every minister was to make known to his congregation the true nature of the impending danger, and to stir them up to resistance. In the <55>meanwhile, a permanent Commission was to sit in Edinburgh to consult upon the perils of the Church and kingdom. Such a step might or might not be justifiable in itself, but there could be no doubt that it was an open defiance of the Government. From that moment a breach between the clergy and the Crown was inevitable.[19]
Of all the controversies which still perplex the historical inquirer, there is perhaps none which is more eminently unsatisfactory than Character of the quarrel between the King and the clergy.that which has been handed down from the sixteenth century on the subject of the quarrel between James and the clergy. It is easy to say that in aspiring to political supremacy the clergy exceeded the proper limits of their office, and that in this particular instance they were animated by a savage spirit of intolerance. It is equally easy to say that they had no reason to repose confidence in James, and that the stopping of their mouths would be a national misfortune, as the freedom of the pulpit furnished the only means by which the arbitrary tendencies of the Sovereign could be kept in check. The fact seems to have been, that whilst the victory either of the King or of the clergy was equally undesirable, it was impossible to suggest a compromise by which the rupture could have been prevented. There was nothing in existence which, like the English House of Commons, could hold the balance even. Partly from the social condition of the country, and partly from the fact that the Scottish Parliament had never been divided into two Houses, that body was a mere instrument in the hands of the King and of the nobility; and if the mouths of the clergy were to be stopped, there remained no means by which the nation could be addressed excepting at the pleasure of the Government.
The weakness of the cause of the ministers lay in this — that they defended on religious grounds what could only be Weakness of the cause of the clergy.justified as a political necessity. That the General Assembly was in some sort a substitute for a real House of Commons; that the organization of the <56>Church had been invaluable in counteracting the exorbitant power of the nobility and the thoughtless unwisdom of the King; and that the liberty of speech on political subjects which had been preserved in the pulpit had done service for which Scotland can never be sufficiently thankful, are propositions which no candid reader of the history of those times will ever venture to deny. But when the ministers asserted that these things were part of the Divine endowment of the Church, and claimed to maintain their ground in spite of all human ordinances to the contrary, they committed themselves to an assertion which was certain to rouse opposition wherever the institutions of a lay society were regarded with honour.
As the guardian of the interests of lay society James was thoroughly justified in resisting the claim of the clergy to play in Scotland the part of the medieval Papacy. It was some time, however, before he made up his mind that it would be safe to oppose the clergy, and he probably clung to the hope that Negotiations with the Commissioners.some amicable arrangement might still be possible. He directed four members of the Privy Council to hold an interview with a deputation of the Commissioners, to declare, in his name, that he would do nothing for the earls or their followers till they had satisfied the Church: and to ask whether, if the Church should think fit to release them from the excommunication which had been pronounced against them, he might receive them again into favour. To these propositions the ministers gave a decided answer. They reminded the King of his promise that he would not listen to the earls till they had again left the country. When they were once more out of Scotland, then, and not till then, the Church would hear what they had to say. But even if the Church saw fit to release them from its sentence, the King might not show favour to men who were under sentence of death for rebellion.
Some few days before this interview took place, Bowes, the English Resident at the Scottish Court, was informed that Black’s sermon.David Black, one of the ministers of St. Andrews, had, in preaching, used expressions insulting to the Queen and Church of England. Although he was at that <57>time actively engaged in supporting the ministers in their opposition to the King, he thought it right to protest against Black’s offence. He found that James had already heard of the affair, and was determined to take steps to bring the offender to punishment.[20]
Accordingly, when, a day or two after, the Privy Councillors reported the unyielding temper in which their proposals had been received by the ministers, The King’s demands.the King replied to a deputation of the clergy, which had come for the purpose of complaining of their grievances, by telling them plainly that there could be no good agreement between him and them till the limits of their respective jurisdictions had been more clearly defined. For his part he claimed that, in preaching, the clergy should abstain from speaking of matters of state; that the General Assembly should only meet when summoned by him; that its decisions should have no validity till after they had received his sanction; and that the Church <58>courts should not meddle with causes which properly came under the cognisance of the law of the land.[21]
According to the ideas which are prevalent in our own day, these demands could only be met either by a frank renunciation of the independent position which had been assumed by the clergy, followed by a request for permission to retain those rights which upon impartial investigation could be shown to be advantageous to their congregations, or by a denial that the State was sufficiently organised to make it probable that justice would be done to them if they renounced their exclusive privileges.
Such a reply was not likely to be made in the sixteenth century. The Edinburgh Commissioners, as soon as they heard what had passed, prepared to defend themselves against an attack upon what they considered to be the purely spiritual privileges of the Church. To them all interference with the Church courts was an assault made by King James upon the kingdom of Jesus Christ, of which they were the appointed guardians. We cannot blame them. If their logic was faulty, their instinct told them truly that, if James were allowed to gain a victory here, he would speedily follow it up by assailing them on ground which was more clearly their own. They therefore, at their meeting on November 11, resolved to resist to the uttermost, and they were strengthened in their resolution by hearing that, the day before, Black had been summoned to appear on the 18th before the Council, to answer for the expressions which he was said to have used in his sermons.[22]
On the following day the Commissioners determined that Black should decline to allow his case to be tried before the Black summoned before the Council.King and Council. The King being applied to, told them that he would be satisfied if Black would appear before him and prove his innocence, but that he would not suffer him to decline the jurisdiction of the Council.
Under these circumstances a collision was unavoidable. <59>The question was in reality only to be decided by allowing one of two parties to be judges in a case in which both of them were equally interested. No compromise was suggested on either side; nor, indeed, was any possible. Accordingly, on the 17th, the ministers drew up a declaration, which was to be given in by Black on the following day, in which he protested, in their name and in his own, that the King had no jurisdiction over offences committed in preaching, until the Church had decided against the accused minister.[23] Accordingly, on the 18th, Black appeared before the Council and declined its jurisdiction. After some discussion, the final decision upon his case was postponed till the 30th.[24] The Commissioners at once sent the declinature to all the Presbyteries, requesting them to testify by their subscriptions their agreement with the course which had been pursued at Edinburgh.[25]
On the 22nd, the King took a final resolution with respect to the Earl of Huntly. He decided that, as it was impossible to Conditions to be exacted from the Earl of Huntly.exterminate the whole of his following without great danger and difficulty, some terms must be granted, if the country were not to be exposed to a perpetual danger. He therefore required that the earl should find sixteen landowners who would enter into bonds for him that he would leave the realm on April 1, if he had not previously satisfied the Church, that he would banish from his company all Jesuits, priests, and excommunicated persons, and that he would engage in no attempt to disquiet the peace of the country. At the same time James issued a proclamation, forbidding all persons to communicate with Huntly and Errol, and ordering preparations to be made for levying a force, which was to march against them if they should refuse the conditions which he had offered.[26]
<60>Two days later, the King heard that the ministers had sent the declinature to the Presbyteries for signature. He immediately Negotiations concerning Black.directed three proclamations to be drawn up. The first prohibited the ministers from making any convocation of his subjects; the second charged those ministers who had come up from the country to return to their several parishes; and the third contained a new summons to Black to appear before the Council to answer not merely for his reflections on Elizabeth, but for several contemptuous observations on the King himself, and on his authority.[27]
Before, however, these proclamations were issued, an attempt was made by the ministers to come to terms with the King. Two or three days were spent in negotiations, which failed because neither party would give way on the main point. Accordingly, on the 27th,[28] the proclamations were allowed to appear.
The next day was Sunday. Every pulpit in Edinburgh was occupied by a minister who put forth all his energies in The second declinature.animating the people to join in the defence of the kingdom of Christ, whose spiritual jurisdiction was attacked. Whatever effect these arguments may have had upon the minds of the hearers, they had none whatever upon the King. Black having appeared before the Council on the 30th, and having once more declined its jurisdiction, a formal resolution was passed to the effect that, as the Church had nothing to do with deciding on questions of treason and sedition, the Court refused to admit the declinature.
Upon this James made another overture. If Black would come before him, and declare upon his conscience the truth concerning The King’s offers refused.the matters with which he was charged, he should be freely pardoned. James forgot that he had to do with men who, whether they were right or wrong, were contending for a great principle, and who were not to be moved by a mere offer of forgiveness. They told the King <61>that they were resisting him on behalf of the liberty of Christ’s gospel and kingdom, and that they would continue to do so until he retracted what he had done.[29] James appears to have been to some extent intimidated by their firmness. Although the Council was engaged in receiving depositions against Black,[30] yet the King himself continued the negotiations into which he had entered, and on the following morning agreed to withdraw the acts of the Council upon which the proclamations had been founded, and to relinquish the proceedings against Black, on condition that he would, in the King’s presence, make a declaration of the facts of his case to three of his brother ministers. Before, however, Black could be brought before him, James had, in consequence of the representations of some who were about him, changed his mind so far as to ask that he should acknowledge at least his fault towards the Queen.[31] This Black utterly refused to do, and the negotiations came to an end. The Council immediately assembled, and as he did not appear, proceeded to pronounce him guilty, leaving the penalty to be fixed by the King.
It was some days before the sentence was carried into effect. The negotiations which had been broken off were once more Black banished beyond the Tay.resumed. As before, both sides were ready to give way in everything excepting on the main point at issue. At last the King’s patience was exhausted, and he ordered Black to go into banishment to the north of the Tay. Not long afterwards, the Commissioners were directed to leave Edinburgh, and the ministers were informed that those who refused to submit would be punished by the loss of their stipends.
The Commissioners had not been long gone when a fresh proposal was made by the King to the ministers of the town. The Octavians.It is unlikely that, under any circumstances, it would have been attended with satisfactory results. But, however that may have been, James did not give fair play to <62>his renewed attempts at conciliation. Unfortunately there were those about the Court who were interested in bringing the quarrel to an issue. The King had for some months placed his confidence in a body of eight persons, who on account of their number went by the name of the Octavians. Under their management the finances were being reduced to some degree of order, an operation which had only been rendered possible by a considerable reduction of the Royal expenditure. As a natural consequence, the Court was crowded with men whose income was curtailed by the economy which had lately come into fashion, and who longed for the downfall of the Octavians, in order that the money which was now spent upon worthier objects might once more flow into their own pockets. Accordingly, The courtiers stir up the quarrel.there were actually to be found amongst the courtiers some who were prepared to inflame the already sufficiently angry temper which prevailed on both sides, in order to make their own profit in the general scramble which would ensue. On the one hand, they informed the King that some of the citizens of Edinburgh kept a nightly watch round the house in which the ministers lived, and that they might at any time rise in insurrection against the Government. On the other hand, they told the ministers that the Octavians were at the bottom of all that had passed, and that it was through their means that the Popish lords had been allowed to return. James at once fell into the trap, and, on the night of the 16th, ordered twenty-four of the principal citizens of Edinburgh to leave the town. As soon as the courtiers knew that this order had been given, they wrote to the ministers, telling them that it had been procured from the king by Huntly, who, as they falsely alleged, had visited him shortly before it had been issued.
On the morning of the 17th, Walter Balcanqual, after complaining in his sermon of the banishment of so many innocent persons, Meeting in the Little Kirk.inveighed against the principal Octavians, and requested the noblemen and gentlemen who were present to meet with the ministers in the Little Kirk after the conclusion of the sermon. As soon as they were assembled the meeting was addressed by Robert Bruce, one of <63>the foremost of the Edinburgh ministers, and it was determined that a deputation should be sent to the King Deputation to the King.to remonstrate with him, and to demand the dismissal of his councillors. James received them at the Tolbooth, and after some sharp words had passed on both sides, left the room without giving them any answer. Upon the return of the deputation to those who sent them, they found that the state of affairs had greatly changed in their absence. As soon as they had left the church, a foolish minister had thought fit to occupy the minds of the excited multitude by reading to them the narrative of the destruction of Haman, from the book of Esther. Tumult in the streets.Whilst they were attending to this, some one among the crowd, who, according to the popular belief of the time, had been suborned by the courtiers, raised a cry of ‘Fly! save yourselves!’ Upon this, the whole congregation, with their minds full of the supposed treachery of the Octavians and the Popish lords, rushed out from the church in order to put on their armour. In a moment the streets were full of an alarmed crowd of armed men, who hardly knew what was the danger against which they had risen, or what were the steps which they were to take in order to provide against it. Some of them, not knowing what to do, rushed to the Tolbooth, and demanded that the most obnoxious of the Octavians should be delivered up to them.
Such a tumult as this was not likely to last long. The provost had little difficulty in persuading men who had no definite object in view to It is easily suppressed.return to their homes, a task in which he received the full support of the ministers.
James’s conduct was not dignified. He seems to have been thoroughly frightened by what was passing around him, and Behaviour of the King.he sent at once to the ministers, to whose complaints he had so lately refused to listen, directing them to send another deputation to him at Holyrood, to which place of safety he proceeded under the escort of the magistrates, as soon as the tumult was pacified.
Accordingly, in the evening, the new deputation set out for Holyrood, carrying with them a petition in which among other things, <64>they simply demanded that everything which had been done to the prejudice of the Church during the past five weeks should be at once annulled. They can hardly have expected that James would grant such a request as this. He was now no longer under the influence of terror, and everyone who was in his company during that afternoon must have urged him not to give way to such a gratuitous acknowledgment of defeat. If he had received the deputation, and had announced to them that, though he was ready to agree to any reasonable terms, he would not surrender the rights of the Crown, there would have been nothing to say against his conduct; but, instead of doing this, he was mean enough to employ Lord Ochiltree to meet the deputation on its way, in order that he might terrify or cajole them into returning without fulfilling their mission.[32]
The next morning James set off for Linlithgow, leaving behind him a proclamation commanding all strangers to He leaves Edinburgh.leave Edinburgh at once, and ordering the removal of the Courts of Justice. It was evident that he intended to make use of the tumult of the day before to bring the question between the clergy and himself to an issue. No doubt he was determined to make the most of an affair which was in reality of very little consequence; but it is unlikely that he was influenced, as is generally supposed, by any very deep and hypocritical policy. In his eyes, the tumult must have assumed far larger proportions than it does to us, standing at this distance of time; and even if he had not been surrounded by men who were unwilling to allow the truth to penetrate to his ears, he would naturally suppose that the ministers had taken a far more direct part in the disturbance than had in reality been the case. The ministers certainly did not take such a course as was likely to disabuse him of his mistake. They wrote to Lord Hamilton, who, in consequence of his elder brother’s insanity, was at the head of the great house which ruled over the important district of Clydesdale, begging him to come to Edinburgh, and to put himself at their head.[33] On the following day Bruce <65>preached with all his energy against the assailants of the Church, and another minister made a violent personal attack upon the King. Accordingly, on the 20th, the magistrates of Edinburgh were ordered to commit as prisoners to the Castle the ministers of the town, together with certain of the citizens, in order that they might answer for their proceedings on the day of the tumult. Bruce and some others of the ministers, knowing that they could not expect a fair trial at the hands of their opponents, sought safety in flight.[34] Shortly afterwards, the Council declared that the tumult had been an act of treason. At the same time, the King issued a declaration, which he required every minister to sign, on pain of losing his stipend. By this signature he was to bind himself to submit to the King’s judicatory in all civil and criminal causes, and especially in questions of treason and sedition.
James was determined to show that physical force at least was on his side. There was scarcely a noble in Scotland who did not Reduces it to submission.1597.look with displeasure upon the pretensions of the clergy; and the King had soon at his command a force which made all resistance useless. On January 1, 1597, he entered Edinburgh, and received the submission of the townsmen. Going to the High Church, he declared his determination to uphold the reformed religion. At the same time, however, he refrained from any declaration of his intention to pardon those who had taken part in the late tumult, and left them with the charge of treason hanging over their heads.
It had not been very difficult to overpower the resistance of the ministers; but it was by no means so easy to devise a scheme by which Difficult position of the King.such collisions might be prevented for the future. There were, in fact, only two ways in which it was possible to obviate the continual danger of a renewal of the quarrel. On the one hand, James might, if he were strong enough, recall into existence the abolished Episcopacy, or, in other words, he might attempt <66>once more to keep the ministers in silence and subjection by means of members of their own order. On the other hand, there was a proposal which had been often made for admitting the representatives of the Church to a share in the deliberations of Parliament, without giving to those representatives any title or jurisdiction derived from the Crown. Parliament would thus, it might be hoped, step in some degree into the place which was occupied by the body which bore the same name in England, so as to give full play to all the social forces which existed in the country, and to support the Crown in its efforts to mediate between the nobility and the clergy.
This last scheme had the advantage of the advocacy of the Secretary, John Lindsay of Balcarres,[35] who was decidedly the Scheme of Lindsay of Balcarres.ablest statesman in the country. Irreconcilably opposed to the pretensions of the ministers to an independent position, he was no less opposed to the equally exorbitant pretensions of the high nobility. It was to him that the representatives of the smaller landed gentry owed their introduction into Parliament. He hoped to be able by their means to counterbalance to some extent the votes of the heads of the great feudal houses. In the same spirit, he was anxious to see the representatives of the Church added to the numbers of those who were summoned to Parliament to treat of matters of national concern.[36]
<67>Yet, specious as this scheme appears, it may well be doubted whether it would have been attended with any satisfactory results. It is true that if the evils under which Scotland was labouring had been merely the results of a defect in the institutions of the country, Not likely to succeed.no plan could possibly have been devised which was more likely to be successful than the union of the bodies which were in reality two distinct Parliaments, legislating independently of one another, and constantly coming into collision. But the truth was, that the two Parliaments were in reality the leaders of two distinct peoples living within the limits of one country, and that any attempt to bring them to work together would only have been attended by a violent explosion. If, indeed, James had been a different man, and if he had from the beginning of his reign given a sympathising but not unlimited co-operation to the cause of the ministers, which was in reality the cause of good order as well as of religion, he might have been able to mediate with effect between the two classes of his subjects. If, for instance, he had been a man such as was the great founder of the Dutch Republic, the clergy would at least have listened to him respectfully when he told them that, for political reasons, it was impossible to deal as they wished with the northern Earls. At all events they would not have been goaded into unwise assertions of questionable rights by the supposition, which, however ill-founded, was by no means unreasonable, that the King was at heart an enemy to the Protestant religion as well as to the political pretensions of the clergy.
<68>But this was not to be. James found himself in a position from which there was no satisfactory way of escape. He found himself Difficulties of James.led on, step by step, from an undertaking in which he at first embarked with a view to restrain encroachments upon his own power, till, before his death, he had himself encroached far upon the proper domain of the clergy, and had sown the seeds of the whirlwind which was to sweep away his son.
It soon became evident that there were considerable difficulties to be overcome before the clergy and the nobility could be brought to work together in Parliament. It was not easy to obtain the consent of the ministers to the change, suspicious as they naturally were of the intentions which might be concealed under the King’s proposal. The only chance of gaining the approval of a General Assembly lay in resorting to a manoeuvre. It was well known that the character of the Assembly was in a great measure influenced by the locality in which it met, as few of the ministers were able to afford to travel from distant parts of the country. Accordingly, James The northern ministers.summoned the Assembly to meet at Perth, in order that it might be convenient for the ministers of the north to attend. These men had never shared the feelings which animated their brethren in the south, and were generally regarded by the High Presbyterian party as ignorant and unlearned. There were, however, on this occasion special reasons which would move them to take part with the King. If they were in some measure cut off from the intellectual movement of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, they were far more practically acquainted with the power of the northern Earls. If the confiscation of the lands of Huntly and Errol would in reality have served the Protestant cause, it cannot be doubted that these men would have been ready to cry out for it. In reality they must have known that they would have been the first to suffer from the confusion into which the country would have been thrown by any attempt to carry such a sentence into execution, and they were ready to support the authority of the King, which promised them the best chance of a quiet life for the future.
<69>When the Assembly met at Perth, on February 29, the King was not contented with leaving The Assembly at Perth.the northern ministers to come to their own conclusions. The courtiers were employed to flatter and caress them. They were told that it was time for them to make a stand against the arrogance of the Popes of Edinburgh. They were closeted with the King himself, who used all the arguments at his disposal to win them to his side. The result was seen as soon as the first great question was brought before the Assembly. They were asked whether the Assembly was lawfully convened or not. The High Presbyterian party declared that it was not, as it had been summoned by royal authority; but, in spite of all their efforts, the question was decided against them.
As soon as this point was settled, James proposed thirteen articles, to which he wished them to give their replies. The question of the vote in Parliament he left to another occasion, but he obtained permission to propose to a future Assembly alterations in the external government of the Church. The Assembly also agreed that no minister should find fault with the King’s proceedings until he had first sought for remedy in vain, nor was he to denounce anyone by name from the pulpit, excepting in certain exceptional circumstances. The ministers were forbidden to meet in extraordinary conventions, and leave was given to the Presbyteries of Moray and Aberdeen to treat with the Earl of Huntly, who was asking, with no very good grace, for admission into the Protestant Church.
The King had thus gained the consent of the Assembly to the view which he took on most of the questions at issue between himself and the clergy. But a vote obtained by Court influence could not possibly have commanded the respect of those who were bound by it, and it was not by the shadow of legality which was thus thrown over the royal acts that the Melvilles and the Blacks were to be restrained from pronouncing the whole affair to be a mere caricature of the true Assemblies of the Church.[37]
<70>Two months later another Assembly met at Dundee, principally composed of the same class of persons, The Assembly at Dundee.and animated by a similar spirit. They agreed to accept the submission of Huntly, Errol, and Angus, and gave permission for their absolution from the sentence of excommunication which had been pronounced upon them. They consented that a commission should be granted to certain of the principal ministers to confer from time to time with the King’s Commissioners on the subject of the settlement of the ministers’ stipends, and to give their advice to the King on all matters concerning the affairs of the Church. This appointment was long afterwards regarded as the first step towards the introduction of Bishops. But it may be doubted whether as yet James had formed any such intention. At present, his wishes seem to have been confined to the discovery of some means by which his authority might be maintained, and his experience of the last two Assemblies may well have led him to suppose that he could effect his purpose far better by the use of his personal influence than by any change in the existing system of Church government.
On June 26, the three Earls were released from their excommunication at Aberdeen, upon declaring their adhesion to Absolution of the Earls.doctrines at which they must have inwardly revolted. However necessary it might have been to relieve them from civil penalties, the ministers who hung back from countenancing this scene of hypocrisy stand out in bright contrast to the King who forced the supposed penitents to submit to such an indignity.
In the course of the following month the Edinburgh ministers were again permitted to occupy their pulpits. The town had some time before been pardoned for the tumult of December 17, but not until a heavy fine had been exacted from it.
James now seemed to have established his authority on a sure foundation. Huntly and the great nobles were reduced to live Condition of the kingdom.for the future as peaceable subjects. The return of the exiles had not been attended with the results which the ministers had predicted. From this time we hear no more of intrigues with foreign powers for <71>the overthrow of the monarchy. The Church, too, had by means which will not bear too close inspection, been induced to renounce some of its most exorbitant pretensions, and it seemed as if days of peace were in store for Scotland.
Everything depended on the spirit in which James took in hand the measure by which he hoped to obtain for the ministers Proposal that the clergy should have a vote in Parliament.a vote in Parliament, and on the success by which his efforts were attended. On December 13 Parliament met, and the Commissioners appointed by the last Assembly, who had no doubt come to an understanding with the King, petitioned that the Church might be represented in future Parliaments. Here, however, they met with unexpected obstacles. The great men who sat in Parliament were by no means willing to see their debates invaded by a crowd of ministers, or even by lay delegates who should be responsible to an ecclesiastical assembly. Unwilling to assent to the proposal, and yet desiring not to displease the King, they passed an Act authorising those persons to sit in Parliament who might be appointed by the King to the offices of Bishop or Abbot, or to any other prelacy. Such an Act was in reality in direct opposition to the petition which had been presented. The Commissioners had asked for seats for representatives of the clergy. The Parliament granted seats to two classes of persons: to laymen who had accepted ecclesiastical titles in order to enable them to hold Church property, and to ministers who were appointed by the King, and who need not have any fellow-feeling at all with their brethren. It was said at the time that those who assented to this Act were induced to do so by the belief that no minister would accept a bishopric from the King, and that they would thus be able to shelve for ever so distasteful a subject. At the same time, they took care to point out that their wish was that the new Bishops should, if they ever came into existence, be employed to exercise jurisdiction of some kind or other, by enacting that the King should treat with the Assembly on the office to be exercised by them ‘in their spiritual policy and government in the Church.’[38]
<72>On March 7, 1598, the Assembly met once more at Dundee. As on former occasions, every influence was used to win over the members to 1598.Assembly at Dundee.support the policy of the Court. There was one, however, amongst those who had presented themselves who was known to be intractable. Andrew Melville was not to be seduced or intimidated in the performance of his duty. James had, accordingly, in no very straightforward way, taken measures to Andrew Melville forbidden to sit.prevent his sharing in the discussions of the Assembly. In the preceding summer he had himself visited St. Andrews, and, under his influence, a new rule had been laid down by which all teachers in the University who did not at the same time hold a ministerial charge were prohibited from taking any part in Church assemblies. He now, in virtue of this rule, which can hardly have been made except for the express purpose of excluding the great leader of the Church party, refused to allow Melville to take his seat.
It was not without opposition that the King The King’s proposal allowed.carried his point. He declared that what he desired was not to have ‘Papistical or Anglican Bishops.’ He wished that the best and wisest of the ministry should take part in the deliberations of the Council and of the Parliament, in order that they might be able to speak on behalf of the Church. He himself took a share in the debates, and allowed himself to make an unfair use of his position to interrupt the speakers, and to bear down all opposition. At last, by a small majority, the Assembly decided that fifty-one representatives of the Church should vote in Parliament. The election of these was to pertain in part to the King and in part to the Church. They did not think fit to descend any further into particulars at the time. An opportunity was to be allowed to the various Presbyteries and Synods to consider of the precise position which was to be occupied by the future representatives. A convention was afterwards to be held, at which three persons nominated by each Synod and six doctors of the Universities were to be present. It was only, however, in the improbable case of the Convention being unanimous on the points which were to be submitted to it, that its decision was to be final in settling the <73>position of the representatives of the Church. If differences of opinion arose, a report was to be made to the next General Assembly, which would itself take the matter in hand.
Accordingly the Convention met at Falkland on July 25, and decided that the representatives should be The Convention at Falkland.nominated by the King out of a list of six, which was to be submitted to him by the Church upon each vacancy. The representative, when chosen, was to be responsible for his actions to the General Assembly, and was to propose nothing in Parliament for which he had not the express warrant of the Church.[39] As, however, the meeting was not unanimous, the final decision was left to the next General Assembly.
It is obvious that this scheme was entirely different from that which had been proposed by the Parliament. What the Convention had agreed upon was the admission of a body of men into Parliament who would be able to keep in check the temporal lords. What the Parliament had consented to was the admission of men who would assist the Crown and the nobility in keeping in check the clergy. Between these two plans James was now called upon to decide. As far as we can judge, he had hitherto been in earnest in his declarations that he had no wish to re-establish Episcopacy. He was at no time able to keep a secret long, and, if he had been acting hypocritically, his real sentiments would have been certain to ooze out in one quarter or another.[40] But, however this may have been, <74>he certainly had not taken all this trouble in order to introduce fifty-one delegates of the General Assembly within the walls of Parliament. What he wanted was a body of men who would give weight to the decisions of Parliament in dealing with the cases in which there had hitherto been a conflict between the two jurisdictions; and it is no wonder that he thought that he could have attained his end, if a certain number of representatives had been elected for life. As far as we can be justified in ascribing to James any definite plan at all, it is probable that he expected that the Parliament, thus reinforced, would support him in the maintenance of his jurisdiction in all external matters, whilst all purely ecclesiastical affairs would be left, as before, to the General Assembly.
The best thing James could have done would have been to throw up the whole scheme, and to wait for better days. The distrust James thinks of restoring Episcopacy.existing between the nobility and the clergy, and the little confidence with which he was regarded by the ministers, rendered his conciliatory proposal incapable of being carried out. It was certain that the scheme of the convention would never be accepted by Parliament, and even if it had been accepted, it would probably have been impossible to reduce it to working order. The time might come when a wise and firm Government might be able to overcome the difficulties by which the double representation of the nation was encumbered; but that time had not yet arrived.
Nor was it likely that James would do anything to anticipate such a time. He became more and more enamoured of the measure which had been proposed by the Parliament, and he felt an increasing desire for the re-establishment of Episcopacy <75>as the only possible means of bringing the clergy to submit to his own authority. With Episcopacy as an ecclesiastical institution, he had, at least as yet, no sympathy whatever. He regarded it simply as a device for keeping the clergy in order, and he did not see that by the very fact of his clothing the officials who were appointed by him for this purpose with an ecclesiastical title, he was preparing for himself a temptation which would soon lead him to interfere with those strictly ecclesiastical matters which were beyond his province. He had hitherto been in pursuit of an object which was at least worthy of the efforts of a statesman. He was now entering upon a path in which the wisest man could not avoid committing one blunder after another.
It was in preparing the ‘Basilicon Doron,’ the work which James drew up in the autumn of this year,[41] for the instruction of his son, The ‘Basilicon Doron.’and which, as he intended it to be kept from public knowledge, may be supposed to contain his real thoughts, that he first gave expression to his opinions on this subject. In this book he spoke clearly of his wish to bridle the clergy, if possible, by the reintroduction of Bishops into the Church. He was not likely to feel less strongly in 1599.the following year, when he was again irritated by a renewal of his old quarrel with Bruce and the ministers of Edinburgh, respecting the amount of licence which was to be allowed to them in speaking of State affairs in the pulpit. At the same time, his own conduct was such as to give rise to grave suspicions. Not only did the sentiments expressed in the ‘Basilicon Doron’ become generally known, when it was found impossible to keep the existence of the book any longer a secret, but he allowed himself to engage in those intrigues with the Catholic Powers of Europe, in the hope of obtaining their support at the death of Elizabeth, which afterwards gave rise to so much scandal. Seton, the President of the Session, and Elphinstone, who had lately become Secretary in the place of Lindsay of Balcarres, were known to be <76>Catholics. Montrose, who had long befriended the northern Earls, was appointed Chancellor, and Huntly himself was constantly seen at Court, and was raised to the dignity of a Marquis, an honour which was by no means counterbalanced in the eyes of the clergy by the gift of a similar title to the Protestant Hamilton.
Towards the end of 1599, James determined to make a last attempt to change the purpose of the ministers. The Assembly Conference at Holyrood.was to meet at Montrose in March, but he thought that before he presented himself before it, it would be well to summon a conference of the principal ministers to meet him at Holyrood in the preceding November. It was in vain, however, that he did his best to induce them to agree to the appointment of representatives for life, and to his proposal that these representatives should bear the title of Bishops.[42] When the 1600.Assembly at Montrose.Assembly met at Montrose, no better success attended his efforts. It was there decided, that the representatives of the Assembly who were to vote in Parliament should only hold their position for a year, and that they were to be tied down by such a body of restrictions that it would be impossible for them to be anything else than the obedient servants of the Assembly.
James had thus brought himself into a position from which it was difficult to extricate himself with dignity. Appointment of Bishops.He must either assent to the nomination of representatives who would never be permitted to vote, or he must appoint Bishops who, unless he could contrive to impose them by force upon the unwilling Church, would not be allowed to exercise any jurisdiction whatever. Under these circumstances, everything combined to lead him to choose the alternative which was offered by the Parliament. It was not, however, till after the strange incident of the Gowrie Plot had brought him once more into collision with the ministers who refused to believe his explanation of that mysterious occurence, that he made up his mind to take the final step. On October 14 1600, he summoned a Convention of Commissioners from the various synods, whose consent he obtained to the appointment <77>of three Bishops in addition to the few who were still surviving from amongst those who had been formerly nominated. These Bishops took their seats, and voted in the Parliament which met in November[43], but they had no place whatever assigned to them in the organization of the Church. The exact part taken by the Convention in this nomination is uncertain; but it is clear that, as it was not a General Assembly, it had no right to act in the name of the Church. The rank, therefore, of these new Bishops cannot be regarded as anything more than that which could be derived from a civil appointment by the Crown, which was covered over by the participation of a few ministers who were altogether unauthorised to deal with the matter. The whole of the labours and intrigues of the last three years had been thrown away, and James had done nothing more than he might have done immediately upon the passing of the Act of Parliament in 1597.[44]
The position which James had thus taken up towards the Scottish Presbyterians, was likely to affect his conduct when he came to deal with the English Puritans. The English Succession.For the present James’s attention was drawn aside to the work of making good his claim to the English throne. For some years Englishmen had been looking forward with anxiety to <78>the death of Elizabeth, and had prognosticated that it would be followed by internal convulsions, if not by a foreign invasion. Curious persons reckoned up a list of fourteen claimants to the Crown[45], not one of whom could show a title perfectly free from objection. Of these, however, the greater number must have known that they had no chance even of obtaining a hearing, deriving their claims, as they did, from sovereigns who reigned before Henry VII., and thus ignoring the rights of the House of Tudor. The only one of these whose claim had been prominently brought forward was Title of the Infanta;Isabella, the eldest daughter of Philip II. of Spain. Those who asked that a Spanish princess should wear the crown of Elizabeth, urged that she was descended from a daughter of William the Conqueror, from a daughter of Henry II., and from a daughter of Henry III. They also brought forward the fact that her ancestor, Louis VIII. of France, had been chosen to the throne of England, and they argued that his descendants had a right to occupy the throne in preference to the descendants of John.[46] Such reasoning was by no means conclusive, and the support of her title by the more violent Catholics was not likely to conciliate the nation in her behalf.
In fact the only doubt which would by any possibility be raised was, whether the succession would fall to the House of Suffolk, or to the House of Stuart.
The Parliamentary title was undoubtedly vested in the Suffolk line. By an Act of Parliament, Henry VIII. had been empowered to dispose of the succession by will; and he had directed that, after his own children and their issue, 1601.of the Suffolk line;the Lady Frances, the eldest daughter of his sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, should succeed. Failing her and her children, her place was to be taken by her sister Eleanor. After the death of Lady Jane Gray, who was the eldest daughter of the Lady Frances, the claims of the elder branch of the Suffolk line were represented by Lady Jane’s next sister, Catherine. If Elizabeth had died before 1587, there can be <79>little doubt that Catherine Gray, or one of her family,[47] would have succeeded her. As long as the Queen of Scots was alive, the reasons which had determined the nation to support Henry VIII. in excluding the House of Stuart were still of importance. With the execution of Mary all these objections fell to the ground. There was now no sufficient cause for tampering with and of the Stuart line.the ordinary rule of hereditary succession. If Parliament had been allowed to follow its own wishes, an Act would undoubtedly have been passed securing the succession to James, who was the representative of his great-grandmother Margaret, the eldest daughter of Henry VII. But the prejudices of the Queen stood in the way. She was determined that in her lifetime no one should be able to call himself her heir. But that when, in the course of nature, she should be removed from the throne, James would be acceptable, with scarcely an exception, to the whole English nation, was undeniable. The desire to return to the regular course was certainly strengthened by the position in which the Suffolk family stood at the end of Elizabeth’s reign. There were doubts as to the validity of the marriage of Catherine Gray with the Earl of Hertford, and, consequently, of the legitimacy of his eldest son, Lord Beauchamp. If the marriage should be hereafter proved to be invalid, Lord Beauchamp’s claim would be worthless; if, on the other hand, it should be proved to be valid, the claim of any representative of the younger branch of the Suffolk line would be equally worthless.
If the Parliamentary title were discarded, the claim of James was certain to prevail. Lawyers indeed had been found who had discovered that Arguments in favour of Arabella Stuart.his cousin, Arabella Stuart, who was also descended from Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII., had a better title, as she had been born in England, whereas James had been born in Scotland. It was a maxim of the English law, they argued, that no alien could inherit land in England. If, therefore, James was incapable of inheriting an acre of land south of the Tweed, he was still more incapable of inheriting the whole realm. A few of the more moderate Catholics would have welcomed the accession of Arabella, as they thought it more <80>likely that they would obtain toleration from her than from a King who had been nursed in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland; but with this exception, these crotchets of the lawyers met with no response in the nation.
The only obstacle which was likely to oppose itself to the realisation of the wishes of the people arose from the character of James himself. James too eager to raise a party in England.For some years he was unable to believe that he could obtain the object of his desires without some superhuman effort of his own. He was bent upon getting together a party who would support his claims when the day of trial came. He intrigued with Essex, with Mountjoy, and even with the rebel Tyrone.[48] If he did not consent to head an army for the invasion of England, he at all events gave no decided refusal when the proposal was made to him.
Many of his counsellors and associates in Scotland had been anxious to embark him on a still more dangerous course. The Catholic intrigue.The Catholics about him wished him to become King of England with the assistance of the Pope, to grant liberty of conscience to the Catholics of both kingdoms, and to set Presbyterians and Puritans at defiance.[49] They were anxious to engage him in a correspondence with the Pope himself. In 1599, a certain Edward Drummond was about to proceed to Rome. James consented to entrust him with letters addressed to the Duke of Florence, the Duke of Savoy, and some of the Cardinals, asking them to support the appointment of the Bishop of Vaison — a Scotchman, named Chisholm — to the Cardinalate, who was expected to watch over the interests of James at Rome. But James resolutely refused to write <81>to the Pope himself, not because he had any scruple about negotiating with him, but because he objected to address him as ‘Holy Father.’ The surreptitious letter to the Pope.Elphinstone, the Secretary of State, urged on by men higher in authority than himself, persuaded Drummond to draw up a letter to the Pope asking for the Bishop’s appointment and explaining that the bearer was directed to say that James had no intention of persecuting the Catholics. Elphinstone slipped this letter in amongst the others which were awaiting James’s signature as he was going out hunting, and had the titles added afterwards by Drummond. Some time later, information that this letter had been delivered in Rome reached Queen Elizabeth, and she directed her ambassador to remonstrate with James. James summoned Elphinstone to bear witness that no such letter had been sent, and Elphinstone not only avowed his ignorance of the letter, but persuaded Drummond on his return from Rome to support him in his falsehood.[50]
<82>There is no difficulty in learning what James thought at this time on the subject of the toleration of the Catholics. In a letter written before his accession to the English throne, James’s opinion on toleration.he expressed himself precisely as he afterwards did to his first English Parliament, that he was unwilling that the blood of any man should be shed for diversity of opinion in religion, but that he was also unwilling that the Catholics should become sufficiently numerous to oppress the Protestants. He would be glad that priests and Jesuits should be banished, and that all further spread of the religion might thus quickly be put a stop to without persecution.[51]
Such an idea was not very practical, but it was at least the expression of a desire to escape from that miserable intolerance with which Europe in every corner was defiled.
In his effort to bring into existence a better order of society, James would receive no help from Elizabeth’s ministers. In their opinion, the only reasonable way of dealing with Catholics was to keep them down, the laity by fine and imprisonment, and the clergy by the gallows. There was one amongst them, Sir Robert Cecil, who could teach James that the way to the throne of England did not lie in a secret understanding with the Catholics. Cecil had been, since his father Burghley’s death, the leading statesman in Elizabeth’s Government. He was in the enjoyment of the full confidence of his sovereign, and had been entrusted by her with the responsible office of Secretary. He saw clearly that it was necessary for England that James should succeed Elizabeth, and he saw also that James must be kept quiet, if he <83>were not to throw his chance away. He therefore took advantage of the presence of a Scottish embassy in London, to let James know that he was devoted to his service. A correspondence sprang up, which was kept secret from the Queen, in which he impressed on James the necessity of avoiding anything like impatience, and assured him that he would answer for his ultimate success. James, who had been prejudiced against Cecil by Essex, and had been led to believe that the Secretary favoured the title of the Infanta, was overjoyed to find that he had gained such a supporter, and submitted for the remainder of Elizabeth’s life to be guided by his counsels. This prudent conduct eventually found its reward. When the time came, James was welcomed from Berwick to the Land’s End, with scarcely a dissentient voice.
[17] “I have been the day before the date of these with the King to receive answer in writing according to his promise. He hath deferred the same till my next repair. The effect I know; and it tendeth to satisfy her Majesty with all promise on his part. But he disableth himself of means against the purposes of these great men who have embraced Spanish assistances in so dangerous degree. … As for the nobility of this land, they be so interallied, as, notwithstanding the religion they profess, they tolerate the opposite courses of the adverse part, and excuse or cloke the faults committed. The assured party is of the ministers, barons, and burghs. With these the King is bound, as he cannot suddenly change his course apparently. But yet of his secret harkenings by the mediation of them who be in special credit with him he is suspected.” — Bowes to Burghley, March 30, 1593, S. P. Scotl. l. 47.
[18] J. Melville’s Diary, 368–371.
[19] Calderwood, v. 443.
[20] “I received from Roger Ashton this letter enclosed, and containing such dishonourable effects against Her Majesty as I have thought it my duty to send the letter to your Lordship. … The King, I perceive, is both privy to this address made to me, and also intendeth to try the matters objected against Mr. David Black. … The credit of the authors of this report against him is commended to be good and famous. Nevertheless, he hath (I hear) flatly denied the utterance of any words in pulpit or privately against Her Majesty, offering himself to all torments upon proof thereof. Yet, seeing the offence is alleged to have been publicly done by him in his sermons, and to be sufficiently proved against him by credible witnesses, I shall therefore call for his timely trial and due punishment” (Bowes to Burghley, Nov. 1, 1596, S. P. Scotl., lix. 63). Aston’s account in the letter enclosed and dated Oct. 31 is as follows: “About fourteen days since, Mr. David Black, minister of St. Andrews, in two or three of his sermons … most unreverently said that Her Majesty was an atheist, and that the religion that was professed there was but a show (?) of religion guided and directed by the Bishop’s injunctions; and they could not be content with this at home, but would persuade the King to bring in the same here, and thereby to be debarred of the liberty of the word. This is spoken by persons of credit to the King, who is highly offended, and at his coming to Edinburgh will bring the matter in trial.” These extracts show that the charge against Black was a bona fide resistance to an insult supposed to have been directed against the Queen, and not a mere scheme to get up an attack against the privileges of the Church.
[21] Calderwood, v. 451.
[22] Calderwood, v. 453. Summons of Mr. David Black, Nov. 10, 1596, S. P. Scotl. lix. 83.
[23] This seems to be the natural interpretation of the phrase in prima instantia, and agrees with the theory of the Church courts which prevailed at the time.
[24] Record of Privy Council, in McCrie’s Life of Melville, note KK.
[25] Calderwood, v. 460.
[26] The articles set down by His Majesty. Proclamation against the Earls, Nov. 22, 1596, S. P. Scotl. lix. 69, 70.
[27] Proclamations, Nov. 24, 1596, S. P. Scotl. lix. 72, 73, 74.
[28] Calderwood, v. 465. Bowes to Burghley, Nov. 27, 1596, S. P. Scotl. lix. 75.
[29] Calderwood, v. 482.
[30] Depositions, Dec. 1, 1596, S. P. Scotl. lix. 83.
[31] He was to ‘confess an offence done to the Queen at least.’ Calderwood, v. 486.
[32] Calderwood, v. 502–514. Spottiswoode (Spottiswoode Society’s ed.), iii. 27, 32. Bowes to Burghley, Dec. 17, 1596, S. P. Scotl. lix. 87.
[33] Calderwood, v. 514. The letter, before it reached the King’s hands, <65>was in some way or other altered, so as to contain expressions of approbation of the tumult.
[34] Calderwood, v. 514–521; Spottiswoode iii. 32–35.
[35] The fact that he put it forward in the spring of 1596, in connection with a scheme which made the restoration of prelacy impossible, shows that he did not advocate it as a covert means of introducing Episcopacy. Calderwood, v. 420.
[36] It is generally supposed that the greatest difficulty would have been found with the High Presbyterian clergy. Yet if, as was in itself desirable, a stipulation had been made that the representatives of the Church in Parliament should always be laymen, it is unlikely that they would have resisted. At the Conference at Holyrood House in 1599, “It was demanded, who could vote for the Kirk, if not ministers? Answered, it might stand better with the office of an elder or deacon nor of a minister, they having commission from the Kirk and subject to render an account of their doing at the General Assembly, and that, indeed, we would have the Kirk as fair enjoying her privileges as any other, and have His Majesty satisfied, and the affairs of the common weal helped; but not with the hinder, wreck and corruption of the spiritual ministry of God’s <67>worshipping, and salvation of his people” (Calderwood, v. 752). In 1592, at the time when the acts confirming the Presbyterian system were passed, the English Resident wrote as follows: — “Sundry laws are made in favour of the Church; but the request of the ministry to have vote in Parliament is denied, notwithstanding that they pressed the same earnestly, in regard that the temporalities of the prelates (having place in Parliament for the Church) were now erected and put in temporal lords and persons, and that the number of the prelates remaining are few and not sufficient to serve for the Church in Parliament” (Bowes to Burghley, June 6, 1592, S. P. Scotl. xlviii. 44). The real difficulty would have come from the nobles, if the ministers could have been convinced that the King was acting in good faith.
[37] Melville’s Diary, 403–414. Book of the Universal Kirk (Bannatyne Club), 889.
[38] Acts of Parl. Scotl. iv. 130.
[39] Calderwood, vi. 17.
[40] There is no direct evidence on one side or the other. But the frequency with which James’s design of establishing the bishops is spoken of by Nicolson in his despatches to the English Government in the course of the following year, warrants us in founding upon his silence at an earlier period a strong presumption that there was no such design formed up to the autumn of 1598. The following passage in a letter written when the subject was before Parliament in 1597 is interesting: “The same day the articles given by the Kirk was dealt in again. The King seemed willing to have yielded them contentment, and so they acknowledge it in the pulpit and otherways. But the Council was against them, saying, if they should have place in Parliament and Council, it were meet for the King’s honour that they had the title of some degree by the name of some degree of prelacy, and so they should be of more estimation with the <74>people, saying that when the Queen of England called any to be of her Council for their wisdom, she honoured them with the title of Knight or other degree, and without some degree of prelacy or other it was not meet they should have place in his Council, thereby thinking the ministers would not receive title and place thereby. But the King, seeing the lords would not otherwise agree unto their motion, willed them not to refuse it, promising to find a myd” [? middle or compromise] “for them therein. Wherein they retain the matter to their choice until they may advise with the General Assembly.” — Nicolson to Cecil, Dec. 23, 1597, S. P. Scotl. lxi. 65.
[41] The earliest mention of the book is probably in the undated advices from Nicolson ascribed by Mr. Thorpe to Oct. 1598. S. P. Scotl, lxiii. 50.
[42] Calderwood, v. 746.
[43] Calderwood represents them as being chosen by ‘the King with his Commissioners and the ministers there convened.’ Nicolson writes: “According to my last, the King laboured the erecting of the Bishops exceeding earnestly; yet for that the same was to be done with general allowance of the Kirk, he directed the Lord President, Secretary, and others to confer with the Commissioners of the Kirk, who, standing upon what was set down at the General Assembly last at Montrose, the King not pleased therewith, nor with the coldness of the estates therein, got it consented unto that the three new Bishops … should have vote with the prelates, and so they had it this day, leaving their further authorities to the next General Assembly.” — Nicolson to Cecil, Nov. 15, 1600, S. P. Scotl. lxvi. 96.
[44] Writers frequently speak of the King’s Bishops as if they were in some way connected with the appointment of representatives assented to by the Assembly of Montrose. Such, however, is evidently not the case. They derived their title simply from the Act of Parliament and the prerogative of the Crown. At the Assembly which met at Burntisland in 1601, there seems to have been no reference to the Bishops on either side.
[45] Introduction to the Correspondence of James VI. with Sir R. Cecil.
[46] Doleman (Persons). Conference on the Succession, 151.
[47] She herself died in 1567.
[48] This letter to Tyrone is among the Lansd. MSS., lxxxiv. fol. 79 a. Tyrone’s answer is in the S. P. Scotl. lxvi. 28. The whole subject of the relations between James and the English parties is treated of at some length by Mr. Bruce in his introduction to the Correspondence of James VI. with Sir R. Cecil. These letters add one or two new facts to the history, but their chief value consists in the light which they throw upon the character of Cecil. Nothing can be more instructive than the contrast between the tone of these letters and those of Lord Henry Howard, which have so often, in spite of repeated protests, been taken to represent Cecil’s feelings as well as his policy.
[49] Gray to Salisbury, Oct. 3, 1608. Hatfield MSS. cxxvi. fol. 59.
[50] Elphinstone was subsequently created Lord Balmerino. In 1608 the whole story came out. The narrative as given above is taken from his letter to the King, Oct. 21, 1608 (Hatfield MSS., cxxvi. fol. 67), and from his relation in Calderwood, v. 740. My reasons for believing it will be given when I come to deal with Balmerino’s trial. In the meanwhile the following extract from a letter of the Jesuit Creichton will serve to put James’s conduct in a clear light:— “As touching the President’s” (i.e. Balmerino’s) “confession to have sent the despatch to Pope and Cardinals without His Majesty’s consent or commandment, I will not mell me with that, nor anything what it may merit. But because I assisted Mr. Edward Drummond in all that negotiation (thinking it to be to the King’s weal and service) and communication of all the letters that were brought for that affair, I thought it expedient to inform you of the verity of all. There was nothing wrought in that negotiation which was not thought to be for the King’s Majesty’s service, which was to procure the Bishop of Vaison’s advancement to the degree of Cardinal, to the end that His Majesty should have in the College of Cardinals one of his true and faithful subjects to advance His Majesty’s service, and dash and stop that which might be to his prejudice; and specially that they should not excommunicate His Majesty, or absolve his subjects from their obedience, as there was some at that time busy to procure it. … It was not given to understand to the Pope that the King’s Majesty was in any disposition either to come [sic] or favour the Catholic religion, for the contrary was contained expressly in the letters, … saying that, albeit he remained constant in that religion <82>in which he was nourished from his cradle, yet he would not be enemy or persecutor of the Catholics so long as they should remain faithful and obedient subjects unto him. As, indeed, His Majesty had ever done, until the horrible and barbarous conspiracy of the Gunpowder. For in Scotland, to them of our order who are holden the most odious, and persecuted to the death by the ministers, he did never use more rigour nor to banish them out of the country, and constrain their parents to oblige them under pain to cause them to depart.” — W. Creichton to Sir A. Murray, Jan. 27, 1609; Botfield’s Original Letters relating to Ecclesiastical Affairs, i. 180.
[51] Correspondence of James VI. with Sir R. Cecil, p. 36.