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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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boundaries, prescribed to them by their timid conductor. Each
following the native bent of his genius and inclination, they
separated in the prosecution of their studies. Buchanan, indulging in
a more excursive range, explored the extensive fields of literature,
and wandered in the flowery mead of poesy; while Knox, passing
through the avenues of secular learning, devoted himself to the
study of divine truth, and the labours of the sacred ministry. Both,
however, kept uniformly in view the advancement of true religion
and liberty, with the love of which they were equally smitten; and as,
during their lives, they suffered a long and painful exile, and were
exposed to many dangers, for adherence to this kindred cause, so
their memories have not been divided, in the profuse but honourable
obloquy with which they have been aspersed by its enemies, and in
the deserved and grateful recollections of its genuine friends.18

But we must not suppose, that Knox was able at once to divest
himself of the prejudices of his education and of the times. Barren
and repulsive as the scholastic studies appear to our minds, there
was something in the intricate and subtle sophistry then in vogue,
calculated to fascinate the youthful and ingenious mind. It had a
shew of wisdom; it exercised, although it did not enrich, the
understanding; it even gave play to the imagination, while it served
to flatter the pride of the learned adept. Once involved in the mazy
labyrinth, it was no easy task to break through it, and to escape into
the open field of rational and free inquiry. Accordingly, Knox
continued for some time captivated with these studies, and
prosecuted them with great success. After he was created Master of
Arts, he taught philosophy, most probably as a regent of one of the
classes in the university.19 His class became celebrated; and he was
considered as equalling, if not excelling his master, in the subtleties
of the dialectic art.20 About the same time, although he had no
interest but what was procured by his own merit, he was advanced
to clerical orders, and was ordained a priest, before he reached the
age fixed by the canons of the church.21 This must have taken place
previous to the year 1530, at which time he had arrived at his
twenty‑fifth year, the canonical age for receiving ordination.

It was not long, however, till his studies received a new

direction, which led to a complete revolution in his religious
sentiments, and had an important influence on the whole of his
future life. Not satisfied with the excerpts from ancient authors,
which he found in the writings of the scholastic divines and
canonists, he resolved to have recourse to the original works. In
them he found a method of investigating and communicating truth,
to which he had hitherto been a stranger, and the simplicity of which
recommended itself to his mind, in spite of the prejudices of
education, and the pride of superior attainments in his own favourite
art. Among the fathers of the Christian Church, Jerom and Augustine
attracted his particular attention. By the writings of the former, he
was led to the Scriptures as the only pure fountain of Divine truth,
and instructed in the utility of studying them in the original
languages. In the works of the latter, he found religious sentiments
very opposite to those taught in the Romish church, who, while she
retained his name as a saint in her calendar, had banished his
doctrine, as heretical, from her pulpits. From this time, he renounced
the study of scholastic theology; and although not yet completely
emancipated from superstition, his mind was fitted for improving the
means which Providence had prepared, for leading him to a fuller
and more comprehensive view of the system of evangelical religion.
It was about the year 1535, when this favourable change
commenced;22 but, it does not appear that he professed himself a
protestant before the year 1542.

As I am now to enter upon that period of Knox’s life at which he

renounced the Roman Catholic communion, and commenced
Reformer, it may not be improper to take a survey of the state of
religion in Scotland at that time. Without an adequate knowledge of
this, it is impossible to form a just estimate of the necessity and
importance of that reformation, in the advancement of which he
laboured with so great zeal; and nothing has contributed so much to
give currency, among Protestants, to prejudices against his
character, as ignorance, or a superficial consideration of the
enormous and almost incredible abuses which then prevailed in the
church. This must be my apology for a digression which might
otherwise be deemed superfluous or disproportionate.

The corruptions by which the Christian religion was universally

disfigured, before the Reformation, had grown to a greater height in
Scotland, than in any other nation within the pale of the Western
Church. Superstition and religious imposture, in their grossest forms,
gained an easy admission among a rude and ignorant people. By
means of these, the clergy attained to an exorbitant degree of
opulence and power; which were accompanied, as they always have
been, with the corruption of their order, and of the whole system of
religion.

The full half of the wealth of the nation belonged to the clergy;
and the greater part of this was in the hands of a few individuals,
who had the command of the whole body. Avarice, ambition, and the
love of secular pomp, reigned among the superior orders. Bishops
and abbots rivalled the first nobility in magnificence, and preceded
them in honours: they were Privy‑Councillors, and Lords of Session,
as well as of Parliament, and had long engrossed the principal
offices of state. A vacant bishopric or abbacy called forth powerful
competitors, who contended for it as for a principality or petty
kingdom; it was obtained by similar arts, and not unfrequently taken
possession of by the same weapons.23 Inferior benefices were
openly put to sale, or bestowed on the illiterate and unworthy
minions of courtiers; on dice‑players, strolling bards, and the
bastards of bishops.24 Pluralities were multiplied without bounds,
and benefices, given in commendam, were kept vacant, during the
life of the commendator, nay, sometimes during several lives;25 so
that extensive parishes were frequently deprived for a long course of
years, of all religious service,—if a deprivation it could be called, at a
time when the cure of souls was no longer regarded as attached to
livings originally endowed for that purpose. The bishops never, on
any occasion, condescended to preach; indeed, I scarcely recollect
an instance of it, mentioned in history, from the erection of the
regular Scottish Episcopacy, down to the era of the Reformation.26
The practice had even gone into desuetude among all the secular
clergy, and was wholly devolved on the mendicant monks, who
employed it for the most mercenary purposes.27

The lives of the clergy, exempted from secular jurisdiction, and

corrupted by wealth and idleness, were become a scandal to
religion, and an outrage on decency. While they professed chastity,
and prohibited, under the severest penalties, any of the ecclesiastical
order from contracting lawful wedlock, the bishops set an example
of the most shameless profligacy before the inferior clergy; avowedly
kept their harlots; provided their natural sons with benefices; and
gave their daughters in marriage to the sons of the nobility and
principal gentry, many of whom were so mean as to contaminate the
blood of their families by such base alliances, for the sake of the rich
doweries which they brought.28

Through the blind devotion and munificence of princes and

nobles, monasteries, those nurseries of superstition and idleness,
had greatly multiplied in the nation; and though they had universally
degenerated, and were notoriously become the haunts of lewdness
and debauchery, it was deemed impious and sacrilegious to reduce
their number, abridge their privileges, or alienate their funds.29 The
kingdom swarmed with ignorant, idle, luxurious monks, who, like
locusts, devoured the fruits of the earth, and filled the air with
pestilential infection; with friars, white, black, and grey; canons
regular, and of St Anthony, Carmelites, Carthusians, Cordeliers,
Dominicans, Franciscan Conventuals and Observantines, Jacobins,
Premonstratensians, monks of Tyrone, and of Vallis Caulium, and
Hospitallers, or Holy Knights of St John of Jerusalem; nuns of
St Austin, St Clair, St Scholastica, and St Catherine of Sienna, with
canonesses of various clans.30
 The ignorance of the clergy respecting religion was as gross as
the dissoluteness of their morals. Even bishops were not ashamed to
confess that they were unacquainted with the canon of their faith,
and had never read any part of the sacred scriptures, except what
they met with in their missals.31 Under such pastors the people
perished for lack of knowledge. That book, which was able to make
them wise unto salvation, and intended to be equally accessible to
“Jew and Greek, Barbarian and Scythian, bond and free,” was locked
up from them, and the use of it, in their own tongue, prohibited
under the heaviest penalties. The religious service was mumbled
over in a dead language, which many of the priests did not
understand, and some of them could scarcely read; and the greatest
care was taken to prevent even catechisms, composed and approved
by the clergy, from coming into the hands of the laity.32

Scotland, from her local situation, had been less exposed to

disturbance from the encroaching ambition, the vexatious exactions,
and fulminating anathemas of the Vatican court, than the countries
in the immediate vicinity of Rome. But, from the same cause, it was
more easy for the domestic clergy to keep up on the minds of the
people that excessive veneration for the Holy See, which could not
be long felt by those who had the opportunity of witnessing its vices
and worldly politics.33 The burdens which attended a state of
dependence upon a remote foreign jurisdiction were severely felt.
Though the popes did not enjoy the power of presenting to the
Scottish prelacies, they wanted not numerous pretexts for interfering
with them. The most important causes of a civil nature, which the
ecclesiastical courts had contrived to bring within their jurisdiction,
were frequently carried to Rome. Large sums of money were
annually exported out of the kingdom, for the confirmation of
benefices, the conducting of appeals, and many other purposes; in
exchange for which, were received leaden bulls, woollen palls,
wooden images, old bones, and similar articles of precious
consecrated mummery.34
 Of the doctrine of Christianity almost nothing remained but the
name. Instead of being directed to offer up their adorations to one
God, the people were taught to divide them among an innumerable
company of inferior divinities. A plurality of mediators shared the
honour of procuring the divine favour with the “One Mediator
between God and man;” and more petitions were presented to the
Virgin Mary and other saints, than to “Him whom the Father heareth
always.” The sacrifice of the mass was represented as procuring
forgiveness of sins to the living and the dead, to the infinite
disparagement of the sacrifice by which Jesus Christ expiated sin
and procured everlasting redemption; and the consciences of men
were withdrawn from faith in the merits of their Saviour, to a
delusive reliance upon priestly absolutions, papal pardons, and
voluntary penances. Instead of being instructed to demonstrate the
sincerity of their faith and repentance, by forsaking their sins, and to
testify their love to God and man, by practising the duties of
morality, and observing the ordinances of worship authorized by
scripture, they were taught, that, if they regularly said their aves and
credos, confessed themselves to a priest, punctually paid their tithes
and church‑offerings, purchased a mass, went in pilgrimage to the
shrine of some celebrated saint, refrained from flesh on Fridays, or
performed some other prescribed act of bodily mortification, their
salvation was infallibly secured in due time: while those who were so
rich and so pious as to build a chapel or an altar, and to endow it for
the support of a priest, to perform masses, obits, and diriges,
procured a relaxation of the pains of purgatory for themselves or
their relations, in proportion to the extent of their liberality. It is
difficult for us to conceive how empty, ridiculous, and wretched,
those harangues were which the monks delivered for sermons.
Legendary tales concerning the founder of some religious order, his
wonderful sanctity, the miracles which he performed, his combats
with the devil, his watchings, fastings, flagellations; the virtues of
holy water, chrism, crossing, and exorcism; the horrors of purgatory,
and the numbers released from it by the intercession of some
powerful saint; these, with low jests, table‑talk, and fireside scandal,
formed the favourite topics of the preachers, and were served up to
the people instead of the pure, salutary, and sublime doctrines of the
Bible.35

The beds of the dying were besieged, and their last moments
disturbed, by avaricious priests, who laboured to extort bequests to
themselves or to the church. Not satisfied with exacting tithes from
the living, a demand was made upon the dead; no sooner had a
poor husbandman breathed his last, than the rapacious vicar came
and carried off his corpse‑present, which he repeated as often as
death visited the family.36 Ecclesiastical censures were fulminated
against those who were reluctant in making these payments, or who
showed themselves disobedient to the clergy; and, for a little money,
they were prostituted on the most trifling occasions.37 Divine service
was neglected; and, except on festival days, the churches, in many
parts of the country, were no longer employed for sacred purposes,
but served as sanctuaries for malefactors, places of traffic, or resorts
for pastime.38

Persecution, and the suppression of free inquiry, were the only

weapons by which its interested supporters were able to defend this
system of corruption and imposture. Every avenue by which truth
might enter was carefully guarded. Learning was branded as the
parent of heresy. The most frightful pictures were drawn of those
who had separated from the Romish church, and held up before the
eyes of the people, to deter them from imitating their example. If
any person, who had attained a degree of illumination amidst the
general darkness, began to hint dissatisfaction with the conduct of
churchmen, and to propose the correction of abuses, he was
immediately stigmatized as a heretic, and, if he did not secure his
safety by flight, was immured in a dungeon, or committed to the
flames. And when at last, in spite of all their precautions, the light
which was shining around did break in and spread through the
nation, the clergy prepared to adopt the most desperate and bloody
measures for its extinction.
 From this imperfect sketch of the state of religion in this
country, we may see how false the representation is which some
persons would impose on us; as if popery were a system, erroneous,
indeed, but purely speculative, superstitious but harmless, provided
it had not been accidentally accompanied with intolerance and
cruelty. The very reverse is the truth. It may be safely said, that
there is not one of its erroneous tenets, or of its superstitious
practices, which was not either originally contrived, or afterwards
accommodated, to advance and support some practical abuse; to
aggrandize the ecclesiastical order, secure to them immunity from
civil jurisdiction, sanctify their encroachments upon secular
authorities, vindicate their usurpations upon the consciences of men,
cherish implicit obedience to the decisions of the church, and
extinguish free inquiry and liberal science.

It was a system not more repugnant to the religion of the Bible,

than incompatible with the legitimate rights of princes, and the
independence, liberty, and prosperity of kingdoms; not more
destructive to the souls of men, than to domestic and social
happiness, and the principles of sound morality. Considerations from
every quarter combined in calling aloud for a radical and complete
reform. The exertions of every description of persons, of the man of
letters, the patriot, the prince, as well as the Christian, each acting
in his own sphere for his own interests, with the joint concurrence of
all as in a common cause, were urgently required for extirpating
abuses, of which all had reason to complain, and for effectuating a
revolution, in the advantages of which all would participate. There
was, however, no reasonable prospect of accomplishing this, without
exposing, in the first place, the falsehood of those notions which
have been called speculative. It was principally by means of these
that superstition had established its empire over the minds of men;
behind them the Romish ecclesiastics had intrenched themselves,
and defended their usurped prerogatives and possessions; and had
any prince or legislature endeavoured to deprive them of these,
while the great body of the people remained unenlightened, it would
soon have been found that the attempt was premature in itself, and
replete with danger to those by whom it was made. To the revival of
the primitive doctrines and institutions of Christianity, by the
preaching and writings of the reformers, and to those controversies
by which the popish errors were confuted from scripture, (for which
many modern philosophers seem to have a thorough contempt,) we
are chiefly indebted for the overthrow of superstition, ignorance, and
despotism; and, in fact, all the blessings, political and religious,
which we enjoy, may be traced to the Reformation from popery.

How grateful should we be to divine providence for this happy

revolution! For those persons do but “sport with their own
imaginations,” who flatter themselves that it must have taken place
in the ordinary course of human affairs, and overlook the many
convincing proofs of the superintending direction of superior wisdom
in the whole combination of circumstances which contributed to
bring about the Reformation in this country, as well as throughout
Europe. How much are we indebted to those men, who, under God,
were the instruments in effecting it, men who cheerfully hazarded
their lives to achieve a design which involved the felicity of millions
unborn; who boldly attacked the system of error and corruption,
though fortified by popular credulity, by custom, and by laws, fenced
with the most dreadful penalties; and who, having forced the
stronghold of superstition, and penetrated the recesses of its temple,
tore aside the veil that concealed the monstrous idol which the world
had so long ignorantly worshipped, dissolved the spell by which the
human mind was bound, and restored it to liberty! How criminal
must those be, who, sitting at ease under the vines and fig‑trees,
planted by the labours and watered with the blood of these patriots,
discover their disesteem of the invaluable privileges which they
inherit, or their ignorance of the expense at which they were
purchased, by the most unworthy treatment of those to whom they
owe them—misrepresent their actions, calumniate their motives, and
load their memories with every species of abuse!39

The reformed doctrine had made considerable progress in

Scotland before it was embraced by Knox. Patrick Hamilton, a youth
of royal lineage,40 obtained the honour, not conferred upon many of
his rank of first announcing its glad tidings to his countrymen, and of
sealing them with his blood. He was born in the year 1504; and
being designed for the church by his relations, the abbacy of Ferne
was conferred upon him in his childhood, according to a ridiculous
custom which prevailed at that period. But, as early as the year
1526, and previous to the breach of Henry VIII. with the Romish
see, a gleam of light was, by some unknown means,41 imparted to
his mind, amidst the darkness which brooded around him. His
recommendations of ancient literature, at the expense of the
philosophy which was then taught in the schools, and the free
language which he used in speaking of the corruptions of the
church, had already drawn upon him the suspicions of the clergy,
when he resolved to leave Scotland, and to improve his mind by
travelling on the continent. He set out with three attendants, and,
attracted by the fame of Luther, repaired to Wittemberg. Luther and
Melanchthon were highly pleased with his zeal; and, after retaining
him a short time with them, they recommended him to the university
of Marburg. This university was newly erected by that enlightened
prince, Philip, landgrave of Hesse, who had placed at its head the
learned and pious Francis Lambert of Avignon. Lambert, who had
left his native country, and sacrificed a lucrative situation, from love
to the reformed religion, conceived a strong attachment to the
young Scotsman, who imbibed his instructions with extraordinary
avidity. While he was daily advancing in acquaintance with the
scriptures, Hamilton was seized with an unconquerable desire of
imparting to his countrymen the knowledge which he had acquired.
In vain did Lambert represent to him the dangers to which he would
be exposed; his determination was fixed; and, taking along with him
a single attendant, he left Marburg, and returned to Scotland.42

The clergy did not allow him long time to disseminate his
opinions. Pretending to wish a free conference with him, they
decoyed him to St Andrews, where he was thrown into prison by
archbishop Beatoun, and committed to the flames on the last day of
February 1528, and in the twenty‑fourth year of his age. On his trial
he defended his opinions with firmness, yet with great modesty; and
the mildness, patience, and fortitude, which he displayed at the
stake, equalled those of the first martyrs of Christianity. He expired
with these words in his mouth: “How long, O Lord, shall darkness
cover this realm! How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of men! Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit!”43 “The murder of Hamilton,” says a modern
historian,44 “was afterwards avenged in the blood of the nephew
and successor of his persecutor;” and the flames in which he expired
were, “in the course of one generation, to enlighten all Scotland, and
to consume, with avenging fury, the Catholic superstition, the papal
power, and the prelacy itself.”

The good effects which resulted from the martyrdom of

Hamilton soon began to appear. Many of the learned, as well as of
the common people, in St Andrews, beheld with deep interest the
cruel death of a person of rank, and could not refrain from admiring
the heroism with which he endured it. This excited inquiry into the
opinions for which he suffered, and the result of inquiry in many
cases was a conviction of their truth. Gawin Logie, principal of
St Leonard’s college, was so successful in instilling them into the
minds of the students under his care, that it became proverbial to
say of any one who was suspected of Lutheranism, that “he had
drunk of St Leonard’s well.”45 Under the connivance of John Winram,
the subprior, they also secretly spread among the noviciates of the
abbey.46

These sentiments were not long confined to St Andrews, and

everywhere persons were to be found who held that Patrick
Hamilton had died a martyr. Alarmed at the progress of the new
opinions, the clergy adopted the most rigorous measures for their
extirpation. Strict inquisition was made after heretics; the flames of
persecution were kindled in all quarters of the country; and, from
1530 to 1540, many innocent and excellent men suffered the most
inhuman death.47 Henry Forrest, David Straiton, Norman Gourlay,
Jerom Russel, Kennedy, Kyllor, Beveridge, Duncan Sympson, Robert
Forrester, and Thomas Forrest, were the names of those early
martyrs, whose sufferings deserve a more conspicuous place than
can be given to them in these pages. A few, whose constancy was
overcome by the horrors of the stake, purchased their lives by
abjuring their opinions. Numbers made their escape to England and
the continent; among whom were the following learned men, Gawin
Logie, Alexander Seatoun, Alexander Aless, John Macbee, John Fife,
John Macdowal, John Macbray, George Buchanan, James Harrison,
and Robert Richardson.48 Few of these exiles afterwards returned to
their native country. England, Denmark, Germany, France, and even
Portugal, offered an asylum to them; and foreign universities and
schools enjoyed the benefit of those talents which their bigoted
countrymen were incapable of appreciating. To maintain their
authority, and to preserve those corruptions from which they derived
their wealth, the clergy would willingly have driven into banishment
all the learned men in the kingdom, and quenched for ever the light
of science in Scotland.

Various causes contributed to prevent these violent measures

from arresting the progress of the truth. Among these the first place
is unquestionably due to the circulation of the Scriptures in the
vulgar language. Against this the patrons of ignorance had
endeavoured to guard with the utmost jealousy. But when the desire
of knowledge has once been excited among a people, they easily
contrive methods of eluding the vigilance of those who would
prevent them from gratifying it. By means of merchants who traded,
from England and the continent, to the ports of Leith, Dundee, and
Montrose, Tindall’s translations of the scriptures, with many
protestant books, were imported. These were consigned to persons
of tried principles and prudence, who circulated them in private with
great industry. One copy of the Bible, or of the New Testament,
supplied several families. At the dead hour of night, when others
were asleep, they assembled in a private house; the sacred volume
was brought from its concealment; and, while one read, the rest
listened with mute attention. In this way the knowledge of the
scriptures was diffused, at a period when it does not appear that
there was a single public teacher of the truth in Scotland.49

Nor must we overlook another means which operated very

extensively in alienating the public mind from the established
religion. Those who have investigated the causes which led to the
Reformation on the continent, have ascribed a considerable share of
influence to the writings of the poets and satirists of the age. Poetry
has charms for persons of every description; and in return for the
pleasure which it affords them, mankind have in all ages been
disposed to allow a greater liberty to poets than to any other class of
writers. Strange as it may appear, the poets who flourished before
the Reformation used very great freedom with the church, and there
were not wanting many persons of exalted rank who encouraged
them in this species of composition. The same individuals who were
ready, at the call of the pope and clergy, to undertake a crusade for
extirpating heresy, entertained poets who inveighed against the
abuses of the court of Rome, and lampooned the religious orders.
One day they assisted at an auto‑da‑fe, in which heretics were
committed to the flames for the preservation of the catholic church;
next day they were present at the acting of a pantomime or a play,
in which the ministers of that church were held up to ridicule.
Intoxicated with power, and lulled asleep by indolence, the clergy
had either overlooked these attacks, or treated them with contempt;
it was only from experience that they learned their injurious
tendency; and before they made the discovery, the practice had
become so common that it could no longer be restrained. This
weapon was wielded with much success by the friends of the
Reformed doctrine in Scotland. Some of their number had acquired
great celebrity among their countrymen as poets; and others, who
could not lay claim to high poetical merit, possessed a talent for wit
and humour. They employed themselves in writing satires, in which
the ignorance, the negligence, and the immorality, of the clergy were
stigmatized, and the absurdities and superstitions of the popish
religion exposed to ridicule. These poetical effusions were easily
committed to memory, and were circulated without the intervention
of the press, which was at that time entirely under the control of the
bishops. An attack still more bold was made upon the church.
Dramatic compositions, partly written in the same strain, were
repeatedly acted in the presence of the royal family, the nobility, and
vast assemblies of people, to the great mortification, and the still
greater disadvantage, of the clergy. The bishops repeatedly procured
the enactment of laws against the circulation of seditious rhymes,
and blasphemous ballads; but metrical epistles, moralities, and
psalms, in the Scottish language, continued to be read with avidity,
notwithstanding prohibitory statutes and legal prosecutions.50

In the year 1540, the reformed doctrine could number among

its converts, besides a multitude of the common people, many
persons of rank and external respectability: among whom were
William, earl of Glencairn; his son Alexander, lord Kilmaurs; William,
earl of Errol; William, lord Ruthven; his daughter Lillias, wife of the
master of Drummond; John Stewart, son of lord Methven; Sir James
Sandilands, Sir David Lindsay, Campbell of Cesnock, Erskine of Dun,
Melville of Raith, Balnaves of Halhill, Straiton of Lauriston, with
William Johnston, and Robert Alexander, advocates.51 The early
period at which they were enrolled as friends to the Reformation,
renders these names more worthy of consideration. It has often
been alleged, that the desire of sharing in the rich spoils of the
popish church, together with the intrigues of the court of England,
engaged the Scottish nobles on the side of the reformed religion. At
a later period, there is reason to think that this allegation was not
altogether groundless. But at the time of which we now speak, the
prospect of overturning the established church was too distant and
uncertain, to induce persons, who had no higher motive than to
gratify avarice, to take a step by which they exposed their lives and
fortunes to the most imminent hazard; nor had the English monarch
yet extended his influence in Scotland, by those arts of political
intrigue which he afterwards employed.

During the two last years of the reign of James V., the numbers
of the reformed rapidly increased. Twice did the clergy attempt to
cut them off by a desperate blow. They presented to the king a list,
containing the names of some hundreds, possessed of property and
wealth, whom they denounced as heretics; and endeavoured to
procure his consent to their condemnation, by flattering him with the
immense riches which would accrue to him from the forfeiture of
their estates. When this proposal was first made to him, James
rejected it with strong marks of displeasure; but so violent was the
antipathy which he at last conceived against his nobility, and so
much did he fall under the influence of the clergy, that it is highly
probable he would have yielded to the solicitations of the latter, if
the disgraceful issue of an expedition, which they had instigated him
to undertake against the English, had not impaired his reason, and
put an end to his unhappy life, on the 13th of December, 1542.52
 PERIOD II.

FROM THE YEAR 1542, WHEN HE EMBRACED THE

REFORMED RELIGION, TO THE YEAR 1549, WHEN HE

WAS RELEASED FROM THE FRENCH GALLEYS.

While this fermentation of opinion was spreading through the

nation, Knox, from the state of his mind, could not remain long
unaffected. The reformed doctrines had been imbibed by several
persons of his acquaintance, and they were the topic of common
conversation and dispute among the learned and inquisitive at the
university.53 His change of views first discovered itself in his
philosophical lectures, in which he began to forsake the scholastic
path, and to recommend to his pupils a more rational and useful
method of study. Even this innovation excited against him violent
suspicions of heresy, which were confirmed, when he proceeded to
reprehend the corruptions that prevailed in the church. He was then
teaching at St Andrews; but it was impossible for him to remain long
in a town, which was wholly under the power of cardinal Beatoun,
the chief supporter of the Romish church, and a determined enemy
to all reform. Accordingly he left that place, and retired to the south
of Scotland, where he avowed his belief of the protestant doctrine.
Provoked by his defection, and alarmed lest he should draw others
after him, the clergy were anxious to rid themselves of such an
adversary. Having passed sentence against him as a heretic, and
degraded him from the priesthood, the cardinal employed assassins
to waylay him, by whose hands he must have fallen, had not
providence placed him under the protection of Douglas of
Langniddrie.54

The change produced in the political state of the kingdom by

the death of James V. had great influence upon the Reformation.
After a bold but unsuccessful attempt by cardinal Beatoun, to secure
to himself the government during the minority of the infant queen,
the earl of Arran was peaceably established in the regency. Arran
had formerly shown himself attached to the reformed doctrines, and
he was now surrounded with counsellors who were of the same
principles. Henry VIII. laid hold of this opportunity for accomplishing
his favourite measure of uniting the two crowns, and eagerly
pressed a marriage between his son Edward and Mary, the young
queen of Scots. Notwithstanding the determined opposition of the
whole body of the clergy, the Scottish parliament agreed to the
match; commissioners were sent into England to settle the terms;
and the contract of marriage was drawn out, subscribed, and ratified
by all the parties. But through the intrigues of the cardinal and
queen‑mother, the fickleness and timidity of the regent, and the
violence of the English monarch, the treaty, after proceeding thus
far, was broken off; and Arran not only renounced connexion with
England, but abjured the reformed religion publicly in the church of
Stirling. The Scottish queen was soon after betrothed to the dauphin
of France, and sent into that kingdom; a measure which, at a
subsequent period, nearly accomplished the ruin of the
independence of Scotland, and the extirpation of the protestant
religion.

The Reformation had, however, made very considerable

progress during the short time that it was patronised by the regent.
In 1542, the parliament passed an act, declaring it lawful for all the
subjects to read the scriptures in the vulgar language. This act,
which was proclaimed in spite of the protestations of the bishops,
was a signal triumph of truth over error.55 Formerly, it was reckoned
a crime to look on the sacred books; now, to read them was safe,
and even the way to honour. The Bible was to be seen on every
gentleman’s table; the New Testament was almost in every one’s
hands.56 Hitherto the Reformation had been advanced by books
imported from England; but now the errors of popery were attacked
in publications which issued from the Scottish press. The reformed
preachers, whom the regent had chosen as chaplains, disseminated
their doctrines throughout the kingdom, and, under the sanction of
his authority, made many converts from the Roman catholic faith.57

One of these preachers deserves particular notice here, as it

was by means of his sermons that Knox first perceived the beauty of
evangelical truth, and had deep impressions of religion made upon
his heart.58 Thomas Guillaume, or Williams, was born at
Athelstoneford, a village in East Lothian, and had entered into the
order of Blackfriars, or Dominican monks, among whom he rose to
great eminence.59 But having embraced the sentiments of the
reformers, he threw off the monkish habit. His learning and
elocution recommended him to Arran and his protestant counsellors;
and he was much esteemed by the people as a clear expositor of
scripture. When the regent began to waver in his attachment to the
Reformation, Guillaume was dismissed from the court, and retired
into England, after which I do not find him noticed in history.

But the person to whom our Reformer was most indebted, was
George Wishart, a brother of the laird of Pittarow in Mearns. Being
driven into banishment by the bishop of Brechin, for teaching the
Greek Testament in Montrose, he had resided for some years at the
university of Cambridge. In the year 1544, he returned to his native
country, in the company of the commissioners who had been sent to
negotiate a treaty with Henry VIII. of England. Seldom do we meet,
in ecclesiastical history, with a character so amiable and interesting
as that of George Wishart. Excelling all his countrymen at that period
in learning, of the most persuasive eloquence, irreproachable in life,
courteous and affable in manners, his fervent piety, zeal, and
courage in the cause of truth, were tempered with uncommon
meekness, modesty, patience, prudence, and charity.60 In his tour of
preaching through Scotland, he was usually accompanied by some of
the principal gentry; and the people, who flocked to hear him, were
ravished with his discourses. To this teacher Knox attached himself,
and profited greatly by his sermons and private instructions. During
the last visit which Wishart paid to Lothian, Knox waited constantly
on his person, and bore the sword, which was carried before him,
from the time that an attempt was made to assassinate him in
Dundee. Wishart was highly pleased with the zeal of his faithful
attendant, and seems to have presaged his future usefulness, at the
same time that he laboured under a strong presentiment of his own
approaching martyrdom. On the night on which he was apprehended
by Bothwell at the instigation of the cardinal, he directed the sword
to be taken from Knox; and, on the latter insisting for liberty to
accompany him to Ormiston, the martyr dismissed him with this
reply, “Nay, return to your bairnes,” (meaning his pupils,) “and God
bless you: ane is sufficient for a sacrifice.”

Having relinquished all thoughts of officiating in that church

which had invested him with clerical orders, Knox had entered as
tutor into the family of Hugh Douglas of Langniddrie, a gentleman in
East Lothian, who had embraced the reformed doctrines. John
Cockburn of Ormiston, a neighbouring gentleman of the same
persuasion, also put his son under his tuition. These young men
were instructed by him in the principles of religion, as well as in the
learned languages. He managed their religious instruction in such a
way as to allow the rest of the family, and the people of the
neighbourhood, to reap advantage from it. He catechised them
publicly in a chapel at Langniddrie, in which he also read, at stated
times, a chapter of the Bible, accompanied with explanatory
remarks. The memory of this fact has been preserved by tradition,
and the chapel, the ruins of which are still apparent, is popularly
called John Knox’s Kirk.61
 It was not to be expected that he would be suffered long to
continue this employment, under a government which was now
entirely at the devotion of cardinal Beatoun, who had gained a
complete ascendant over the mind of the timid and irresolute regent.
But in the midst of his cruelties, and while he was planning still more
desperate deeds,62 the cardinal was himself suddenly cut off. A
conspiracy was formed against his life; and a small but determined
band (some of whom seem to have been instigated by resentment
for private injuries, and the influence of the English court, others
animated by a desire to revenge his cruelties, and deliver their
country from his oppression) seized upon the castle of St Andrews,
in which he resided, and put him to death, on the 29th of May, 1546.

The death of Beatoun did not, however, free Knox from

persecution. John Hamilton, an illegitimate brother of the regent,
who was nominated to the vacant bishoprick, sought his life with as
great eagerness as his predecessor. He was obliged to conceal
himself, and to remove from place to place, to provide for his safety.
Wearied with this mode of living, and apprehensive that he would
some day fall into the hands of his enemies, he came to the
resolution of leaving Scotland.

England presented the readiest and most natural sanctuary to

those who were persecuted by the Scottish prelates. But though
they usually fled to that kingdom in the first instance, they did not
find their situation comfortable, and the greater part, after a short
residence there, proceeded to the continent. Henry VIII., from
motives which, to say the least, were highly suspicious, had
renounced subjection to the Roman see, and compelled his subjects
to follow his example. He invested himself with the ecclesiastical
supremacy, within his own dominions, which he had wrested from
the bishop of Rome; and in the arrogant and violent exercise of that
power, the English pope was scarcely exceeded by any of the
pretended successors of St Peter. Having signalized himself at a
former period as a literary champion against Luther, he was anxious
to demonstrate that his breach with the court of Rome had not
alienated him from the catholic faith; and he would suffer none to
proceed a step beyond the narrow and capricious line of reform
which he was pleased to prescribe. Hence the motley system of
religion which he established, and the contradictory measures by
which it was supported. Statutes against the authority of the pope,
and against the tenets of Luther, were enacted in the same
parliament; and papists and protestants were alternately brought to
the same stake. The protestants in Scotland were universally
dissatisfied with this bastard reformation, a circumstance which had
contributed not a little to cool their zeal for the lately proposed
alliance with England. Sir Ralph Sadler, his ambassador, found
himself in a very awkward predicament on this account; for the
papists were offended because he had gone so far from Rome, the
protestants because he had gone no farther. The latter disrelished, in
particular, the restrictions which he had imposed upon the reading
and interpretation of the scriptures, and which he urged the regent
to imitate in Scotland. And they had no desire for the king’s book, of
which Sadler was furnished with copies to distribute, and which lay
as a drug upon his hands.63

On these accounts, Knox had no desire to go to England, where,

although “the pope’s name was suppressed, his laws and corruptions
remained in full vigour.”64 His determination was to visit Germany,
and to prosecute his studies in some of the protestant universities,
until he should see a favourable change in the state of his native
country. But the lairds of Langniddrie and Ormiston, who were
extremely reluctant to part with him, prevailed on him to relinquish
his design, and to repair, along with their sons, to the castle of
St Andrews.65

The conspirators against cardinal Beatoun kept possession of

the castle after his death. The regent had assembled an army and
laid siege to it, from a desire not so much to avenge the murder of
the cardinal, at whose fall he secretly rejoiced, as to comply with the
importunity of the clergy, and to release his eldest son, who had
been retained by Beatoun as a pledge of his father’s fidelity, and had
now fallen into the hands of the conspirators. But the besieged,
having obtained assistance from England, baffled all his skill; and a
treaty was at last concluded, by which they engaged to deliver up
the castle to the regent, upon his procuring to them from Rome a
pardon for the cardinal’s murder. The pardon was obtained; but the
conspirators, alarmed, or affecting to be alarmed, at the
contradictory terms in which it was expressed, refused to perform
their stipulation, and the regent felt himself unable, without foreign
aid, to enforce a compliance. In this interval, a number of persons,
who were harassed for their attachment to the reformed sentiments,
repaired to the castle, where they enjoyed the free exercise of their
religion.66

Writers, unfriendly to Knox, have endeavoured to fix an

accusation upon him respecting the assassination of cardinal
Beatoun. Some have ignorantly asserted, that he was one of the
conspirators.67 Others, better informed, have argued that he made
himself accessary to their crime, by taking shelter among them.68
With more plausibility, others have appealed to his writings, as a
proof that he vindicated the deed of the conspirators as laudable, or
at least innocent. I know that some of Knox’s vindicators have
denied this charge, and maintain that he justified it only so far as it
was the work of God, or a just retribution in providence for the
crimes of which the cardinal had been guilty, without approving the
conduct of those who were the instruments of punishing him.69 The
just judgment of heaven is, I acknowledge, the chief thing to which
he directs the attention of his readers; at the same time, I think no
one who carefully reads what he has written on this subject, can
doubt that he justified the action of the conspirators.70 The truth is,
he held the opinion, that persons who, according to the law of God,
and the just laws of society, have forfeited their lives, by the
commission of flagrant crimes, such as notorious murderers and
tyrants, may warrantably be put to death by private individuals,
provided all redress, in the ordinary course of justice, is rendered
impossible, in consequence of the offenders having usurped the
executive authority, or being systematically protected by oppressive
rulers. This is an opinion of the same kind with that of tyrannicide,
held by so many of the ancients, and defended by Buchanan, in his
dialogue, De jure regni apud Scotos. It is a principle, I confess, of
very dangerous application, and extremely liable to be abused by
factious, fanatical, and desperate men, as a pretext for perpetrating
the most nefarious deeds. It would be unjust, however, on this
account, to confound it with the principle, which, by giving to
individuals a liberty to revenge their own quarrels, legitimates
assassination, a practice which was exceedingly common in that age.
I may add, that there have been instances of persons, not invested
with public authority, taking the execution of punishment into their
own hands, whom we may scruple to load with an aggravated
charge of murder, although we cannot approve of their conduct.71

Knox entered the castle of St Andrews at the time of Easter,

1547, and conducted the education of his pupils after his
accustomed manner. In the chapel within the castle, he read to them
lectures upon the scriptures, beginning at the place in the gospel
according to John where he had left off at Langniddrie; and he
catechised them publicly in the parish church belonging to the city.
Among the refugees in the castle who attended these exercises, and
who had not been concerned in the conspiracy against Beatoun,72
there were three persons who deserve to be particularly noticed.

Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, Lyon King at Arms, had been a
favourite at the court both of James IV. and of his son, James V. He
was esteemed one of the first poets of the age, and his writings had
contributed greatly to the advancement of the Reformation.
Notwithstanding the indelicacy which disfigures several of his
poetical productions,73 the personal deportment of Lindsay was
grave; his morals were correct; and his writings discover a strong
desire to reform the manners of the age, as well as ample proofs of
true poetical genius, extensive learning, and wit the most keen and
penetrating. He had long lashed the vices of the clergy, and exposed
the absurdities and superstitions of popery, in the most popular and
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