amongst them they will do you such service, as, if the war succeed, ye shall make an easy conquest of this realm; as for his part he shall deliver into your hands, at the entry of your army, the keys of the same on the west marches, being all the strongholds there in his custody.” I offered him presently to write to my lord of Suffolk for 100l. for him if he would; but he said, “he would stay till he heard again from your majesty in that behalf.”’ Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 165.
161
Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 415, 425. Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 83. Knox, in his History of the Reformation (edit. Laing, vol. i p. 100), archly says, ‘The cleargy hearto long repugned; butt in the end, convicted by reassonis, and by multitud of votes in thare contrare, thei also condiscended; and so, by Act of Parliament, it was maid free to all man and woman to reid the Scriptures in thair awin toung, or in the Engliss toung; and so war all Actes maid in the contrair abolished.’
162
Or, as Keith calls them, ‘English Lords.’ History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland, vol. i. p. 80.
163
In May 1544 the English attacked Scotland, Tytler's History, vol. iv. p. 316; and in that same month, the ‘Anglo-Scottish party’ consisted only of the Earls of Lennox and of Glencairn, since even ‘Angus, George Douglas, and their numerous and powerful adherents, joined the cardinal.’ p. 319. As to the part taken by the Scotch clergy, see, in Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 173, a letter to Henry VIII., written on the 1st of May 1543: ‘And as to the kirk-men, I assure your majesty they seek the war by all the means they can, and do daily entertain the noblemen with money and rewards to sustain the wars, rather than there should be any agreement with your majesty; thinking, verily, that if peace and unity succeed, that they shall be reformed, and lose their glory, which they had rather die, and put all this realm in hazard, than they would forego.’ See also p. 184, note.
164
Buchanan records a very curious conversation between the regent and Douglas, which, as I do not remember to have met with elsewhere, I shall transcribe. The exact date of it is not mentioned, but, from the context, it evidently took place in 1544 or 1545. ‘Ibi cum Prorex suam deploraret solitudinem, et se a nobilitate derelictum quereretur, Duglassius ostendit “id ipsius culpa fieri, non nobilium, qui et fortunas omnes et vitam ad publicam salutem tuendam conferrent, quorum consilio contempto ad sacrificulorum nutum circumageretur, qui foris imbelles, domi seditiosi, omniumque periculorum expertes alieni laboris fructu ad suas voluptates abuterentur. Ex hoc fonte inter te et proceres facta est suspitio, quæ (quòd neutri alteris fidatis) rebus gerendis maxime est impedimento.”’ Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xv. p. 435. Buchanan was, at this time, about thirty-eight years old; and that some such conversation as that which he narrates actually took place, is, I think, highly probable, though the historian may have thrown in some touches of his own. At all events, he was too great a rhetorician to invent what his contemporaries would deem unlikely to happen; so that, from either point of view, the passage is valuable as an evidence of the deep-rooted hostility which the nobles bore towards the Church.
165
Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 337. ‘The plot is entirely unknown either to our Scottish or English historians; and now, after the lapse of nearly three centuries, has been discovered in the secret correspondence of the State-paper Office.’ The first suggestion of the murder was in April 1544. See State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 377, and the end of the Preface to vol. iv. But Mr. Tytler and the editor of the State Papers appear to have overlooked a still earlier indication of the coming crime, in Sadler's Papers. See, in that collection, vol. i. p. 77, a conversation, held in March 1543, between Sir Ralph Sadler and the Earl of Arran; Sadler being conducted by the Earl of Glencairn. On that occasion, the Earl of Arran used an expression concerning Beaton, the meaning of which Sir Ralph evidently understood. ‘“By God,” quoth he, “he shall never come out of prison whilst I may have mine own will, except it be to his farther mischief.” I allowed the same well’ (replied Sadler), ‘and said, “It were pity, but he should receive such reward as his merits did require.”’
166
State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 560. A Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 42. Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 221–223. Lindsay of Pitscottie (Chronicles, vol. ii. p. 484) relates a circumstance respecting the murder, which is too horrible to mention, and of which it is enough to say, that it consisted of an obscene outrage committed on the corpse of the victim. Though such facts cannot now be published, they are so characteristic of the age, that they ought not to be passed over in complete silence.
167
Respecting which, two Scotch Protestant historians have expressed themselves in the following terms: ‘God admonished men, by this judgement, that he will in end be avenged upon tyranns for their crueltie, howsoever they strenthen themselves.’ Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i. p. 224. And, whoever considers all the circumstances, ‘must acknowledge it was a stupendous act of the judgment of the Lord, and that the whole was overruled and guided by Divine Providence.’ Stevenson's History of the Church and State of Scotland, p. 38.
168
Even the editor of M'Crie's Life of Knox, Edinburgh, 1841, p. xxxv., notices ‘the ill-timed merriment he displays in relating the foul deed’ of Beaton's murder.
169
Shortly before his death, he said, with honest and justifiable pride, ‘What I have bene to my countrie, albeit, this vnthankfull aige will not knowe, yet the aiges to come wilbe compelled to bear witnes to the treuth.’ Bannatyne's Journal, Edinburgh, 1806. p. 119. Bannatyne was Knox's secretary. It is to be regretted that no good life of Knox should have yet been published. That by M'Crie is an undistinguishing and injudicious panegyric, which, by provoking a reaction of opinion, has damaged the reputation of the great reformer. On the other hand, the sect of Episcopalians in Scotland are utterly blind to the real grandeur of the man, and unable to discern his intense love of truth, and the noble fearlessness of his nature.
170
Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 374, 375. M'Crie's Life of Knox, pp. 27, 28. Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 154. Presbytery Displayed, 1663, 4to, p. 28. Shields' Hind let loose, 1687, pp. 14, 39, 638. In his History of the Reformation, edit. Laing, vol. i. pp. 177, 180, he calls it a ‘godly fact,’ and says, ‘These ar the workis of our God;’ which, in plain language, is terming the Deity an assassin. But, bad as this is, I agree with M'Crie, that there is no trustworthy evidence for deeming him privy to the murder. Compare, however, A Diurnal of Occurrents p. 42, with Lyon's History of St. Andrews, vol. ii. p. 364.
171
M'Crie's Life of Knox, pp. 38, 43, 350. Argyll's Presbytery Examined, 1848, p. 19.
172
M'Crie's Life of Knox, pp. 44, 71.
173
Ibid. p. 99. As to the nobles, who received him, and heard him preach, see p. 102.
174
‘Influenced by motives which have never been fully comprehended, he departed to Geneva, where, for a time, he became pastor of a Protestant congregation.’ Russell's History of the Church in Scotland, 1834, vol. i. p. 193. M'Crie, who sees no difficulty, simply says, ‘In the month of July 1556, he left Scotland, and, having arrived at Dieppe, he proceeded with his family to Geneva.’ Life of Knox, p. 107.
175
Knox, in his savoury diction, likens her appointment to putting a saddle on the back of a cow. ‘She maid Regent in the year of God 1554; and a croune putt upone hir head, als seimlye a sight (yf men had eis), as to putt a sadill upone the back of ane unrewly kow.’ I copy this passage from Mr. Laing's excellent
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