Part 15

God did so bless our weak beginning that, within a few months, the hearts of many were so strengthened that we sought to have the face of a Church amongst us, and to have open crimes punished, without respect of person. For that purpose, by common election, elders were appointed. To them the whole brethren promised obedience; for at that time we had no public ministers of the Word; but certain zealous men, amongst whom were the Laird of Dun, David Forrest, Master Robert Lockhart, Master Robert Hamilton, William Harlaw, and others, exhorted their brethren, according to the gifts and graces granted unto them. Shortly after did God stir up His servant, Paul Methven (whose latter fall ought not to deface the work of God in him), and he in boldness of spirit began openly to preach Christ Jesus in Dundee, in divers parts of Angus, and in Fife. God did so work with him that many began openly to renounce their old idolatry, and to submit themselves to Christ Jesus, and unto His blessed ordinances. In consequence, the town of Dundee began to erect the face of a public Church Reformed, and in this the Word was openly preached, and Christ's Sacraments were truly ministered.

[Sidenote: John Willock preaches: formal Steps towards a Public Reformation are taken.]

In the meantime God did send to us our dear brother, John Willock, a man godly, learned, and grave, who, after short abode at Dundee, repaired to Edinburgh. There, notwithstanding his long and dangerous sickness, he so encouraged the brethren by godly exhortations, that we began to deliberate upon some public Reformation; for the corruption in religion was such that, with safe conscience, we could no longer sustain it. Yet, because we would attempt nothing without the knowledge of the sacred authority, with one consent, after the deliberation of many days, it was concluded that by our public and common supplication we should attempt to secure the favour, support, and assistance of the Queen, then Regent, towards a godly reformation. For that purpose, after we had prepared our oration and petitions, we appointed from amongst us a man whose age and years deserved reverence, whose honesty and worship might have craved audience of any magistrate on earth, and whose faithful service to the authority at all times had been such that on him could fall no suspicion of unlawful disobedience. This orator was that ancient and honourable father, Sir James Sandilands of Calder, knight, to whom we gave commission and power in all our names then present, before the Queen Regent thus to speak:--

[Sidenote: The first Oration and Petition of the Protestants of Scotland to the Queen Regent.]

"Albeit we have of long time contained ourselves in such modesty, Most Noble Princess, that neither the exile of body, tinsel[128] of goods, nor perishing of this mortal life, was able to convene us to ask from your Grace reformation and redress of those wrongs and of that sore grief patiently borne by us in bodies and minds for so long a time; yet are we now, of very conscience and by the fear of our God, compelled to crave, at your Grace's feet, remedy against the most unjust tyranny used against your Grace's most obedient subjects, by those that are called the Estate Ecclesiastical. Your Grace cannot be ignorant what controversy hath been, and yet is, concerning the true religion, and the right worshipping of God, and how the clergy, as they desire to be termed, usurp to themselves such empire above the consciences of men that whatsoever they command must be obeyed, and whatsoever they forbid must be avoided, without further respect to God's pleasure, commandment, or will, revealed to us in His most holy Word; or else there abideth nothing for us but faggot, fire, and sword. By these means, many of our brethren have been stricken most cruelly and most unjustly of late years within this realm. This now we find to trouble and wound our consciences; for we acknowledge it to have been our bounden duty before God, either to have defended our brethren from those cruel murderers, seeing we are a part of that power which God hath established in this realm, or else to have given with them open testification of our faith. Now we ourselves offer to do this, lest we shall seem to justify their cruel tyranny by our continual silence.

[128] Loss.

"This condition of affairs doth not only displease us, but as your Grace's wisdom most prudently doth foresee, for the quieting of this intestine dissension, a public Reformation, in religion as well as in temporal government was most necessary. To this task, as we are informed, ye have most gravely and most godly exhorted as well the clergy as the nobility, to employ their study, diligence, and care. We, therefore, of conscience, dare no longer dissemble in so weighty a matter which concerneth the glory of God and our salvation. Neither now dare we withdraw our presence, or conceal our petitions, lest the adversaries hereafter shall object to us that place was granted to reformation, and yet no man suited for the same; and so should our silence be prejudicial unto us in time to come. Therefore, knowing no other order placed in this realm, but your Grace, in your grave Council, set to amend, as well the disorder ecclesiastical, as the defaults in the temporal regiment, we most humbly prostrate ourselves before your feet, asking your justice, and your gracious help, against them that falsely traduce and accuse us, as if we were heretics and schismatics. Under that colour they seek our destruction; because we seek the amendment of their corrupted lives, and that Christ's religion be restored to its original purity. Further, we crave of your Grace to hear, with open and patient ears, these our subsequent requests; and, to the joy and satisfaction of our troubled consciences, mercifully to grant the same, unless by God's plain Word any be able to prove that justly they ought to be denied.

"First, Humbly we ask that, as we have, by the laws of this realm, after long debate, obtained to read the holy books of the Old and New Testaments in our common tongue, as spiritual food to our souls, so from henceforth it may be lawful that we may convene publicly or privately to our Common Prayers, in our vulgar tongue; to the end that we may increase and grow in knowledge, and be induced, in fervent and oft prayer, to commend to God the Holy Church universal, the Queen our Sovereign, her honourable and gracious husband, the stability of their succession, your Grace Regent, the Nobility, and the whole Estate of this Realm.

"Secondly, If it shall happen in our said conventions that any hard place of Scripture be read, from which no profit ariseth to the conveners, we ask that it shall be lawful to any person qualified in knowledge, being present, to interpret and open up the said hard places, to God's glory and to the profit of the hearers. If any think that this liberty would be occasion of confusion, debate, or heresy, we are content that it be provided that the said interpretation shall underlie the judgment of the most godly and most learned within the realm at this time.

"Thirdly, We seek that the holy Sacrament of Baptism may be used in the vulgar tongue; so that the godfathers and witnesses may not only understand the points of the league and contract made betwixt God and the infant, but also that the Church then assembled may be more gravely informed and instructed of the duties which at all times they owe to God, according to the promise made unto Him, when they were received into His household by the lavachre[129] of spiritual regeneration.

[129] Washing.

"Fourthly, We desire that the holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or of His most blessed body and blood, may likewise be ministered unto us in the vulgar tongue; and in both kinds, according to the plain institution of our Saviour Christ Jesus.

"Lastly, We most humbly require that the wicked, slanderous, and detestable life of prelates, and of the estate ecclesiastical may be so reformed, that the people may not have occasion (as for many days they have had) to contemn their ministers, and the preaching whereof they should be messengers. If they suspect that we, envying their honours or coveting their riches and possessions rather than zealously desiring their amendment and salvation, do travail and labour for this Reformation; we are content not only that the rules and precepts of the New Testament, but also the writings of the ancient fathers, and the godly approved laws of Justinian the Emperor, decide the controversy between us and them. And if it shall be found that either malevolently or ignorantly we ask more than these three forenamed have required and continually do require of able and true ministers in Christ's Church, we refuse not correction, as your Grace, with right judgment, shall think meet. But if all the forenamed shall damn that which we damn and approve that which we require, then we most earnestly beseech your Grace that, notwithstanding the long consuetude which they have had to live as they list, they be compelled either to desist from ecclesiastical administration, or to discharge their duties as becometh true ministers; so that, the grave and godly face of the primitive Church reduced,[130] ignorance may be expelled and true doctrine and good manners may once again appear in the Church of this realm.

[130] Brought back.

"These things we, as most obedient subjects, require of your Grace, in the name of the Eternal God and of His Son Christ Jesus, in presence of whose throne judicial, ye and all other that here on earth bear authority shall give account of your temporal regiment. The Spirit of the Lord Jesus move your Grace's heart to justice and equity. Amen."

[Sidenote: The Papists brag of Disputation: the Articles of Reconciliation.]

When these petitions were presented, the Estate Ecclesiastical began to storm and to devise all manner of lies to deface the equity of our cause. They bragged that they would have public disputation. This we most earnestly asked them to arrange, upon two conditions: the one, that the plain and written Scriptures of God should decide all controversy; the other, that our brethren, of whom some were then exiled and by them unjustly condemned, might have free access to the said disputation, and safe conduct to return to their dwelling places, notwithstanding any process which before had been led against them in matters concerning religion. But these preliminary conditions were utterly denied. No judge would they admit but themselves, their Councils, and Canon law. They and their faction began to draw up certain Articles of Reconciliation. These stipulated that we should permit the Mass to remain in reverence and estimation, grant purgatory after this life, confess prayer to saints and for the dead, and suffer them to enjoy their accustomed rents, possession, and honour. Upon these terms, they were prepared to grant us freedom to pray and baptize in the vulgar tongue, if this were done secretly, and not in the open assembly.

The grossness of these articles was such, that with one voice we refused them; and continued to crave justice from the Queen Regent, and a reasonable answer to our former petitions. The Queen Regent, a woman crafty, dissimulate, and false, thinking to make profit of both parties, gave us permission to conduct ourselves in godly manner, according to our desires, provided that we should not make public assemblies in Edinburgh or Leith; and she promised her assistance to our preachers, until some uniform order might be established by a Parliament. To the clergy, she quietly gave signification of her mind, promising that, as soon as opportunity should serve, she should so arrange matters for them that they should have no more trouble. Some say that they gave her a large purse,--40,000 pounds, says the Chronicle gathered by Sir William Bruce, the Laird of Earlshall. Unsuspecting of her doubleness and falsehood, we were fully contented with her answer; and did use ourselves so quietly that, for her pleasure, we put silence to John Douglas. He would have preached publicly in the town of Leith; but in all things we sought the contentment of her mind, so far as we should not offend God by obeying her in things unlawful.

[Sidenote: Persecution at St. Andrews: Walter Myln is burned.]

Shortly after these things, that cruel tyrant and unmerciful hypocrite, falsely called Archbishop of St. Andrews, apprehended that blessed martyr of Christ Jesus, Walter Myln; a man of decrepit age, whom most cruelly and most unjustly he put to death by fire in St. Andrews, the twenty-eighth day of April, the year of God 1558. This did highly offend the hearts of all godly, and immediately after his death a new fervency arose amongst the whole people; yea, even in the town of St. Andrews, the people began plainly to damn such unjust cruelty. In testification that the death of Walter Myln would abide in recent memory, there was cast together a great heap of stones at the place where he was burned. The Archbishop and the priests, offended, caused this to be removed once or twice, with denunciation, by cursing, of any man who should there lay a stone. But their breath was spent in vain; for the heap was always renewed, until the priests and papists did by night steal away the stones to build their walls, and for other their private uses.

Having no suspicion that the Queen Regent approved of the murder of Walter Myln, we did most humbly complain of this unjust cruelty, requiring that justice in such cases should be administered with greater indifference.[131] A woman born to dissemble and deceive, she began to lament to us the cruelty of the Archbishop, excusing herself as innocent. She declared that sentence had been given without her knowledge, because the man had been a priest at one time; and the Archbishop's officer had prosecuted him without any commission from the civil authority, _ex officio_, as they term it.

[131] Impartiality.

[Sidenote: The Protestants appeal to Parliament.]

Still unsuspicious, we required some order to be taken against such enormities; and this she promised, as she had often done before. But because a Parliament was to be held shortly after, for certain affairs pertaining rather to the Queen's particular profit than to the commodity of the commonwealth, we thought good to expose our matter unto the whole Parliament, and from them to seek some redress. Therefore, with one consent, we did offer to the Queen and Parliament a letter in this tenor:--

"Unto your Grace, and unto you, Right Honourable Lords of this present Parliament, humbly mean and show your Grace's faithful and obedient subjects: That we are daily molested, slandered, and injured by wicked and ignorant persons, place-holders of the ministers of the Church, who most untruly cease not to infame us as heretics, and under that name most cruelly have persecuted divers of our brethren, and further intend to execute their malice against us, unless by some godly order their fury and rage be bridled and stayed. Yet in us they are able to prove no crime worthy of punishment, unless it be that to read the Holy Scriptures in our assemblies, to invocate the name of God in public prayers, with all sobriety to interpret and open the places of Scripture that be read, to the further edification of the brethren assembled, and truly according to the holy institution of Christ Jesus to minister the Sacraments, are crimes worthy of punishment. Of other crimes they are not able to convict us.... Most humbly require we of your Grace, and of your right honourable Lords, Barons, and Burgesses assembled in this present Parliament, prudently to weigh, and, as becometh just judges, to grant these our most just and reasonable petitions:--

"Firstly, ... We most humbly desire that all such Acts of Parliament, as in the time of darkness gave power to the Churchmen to execute their tyranny against us, by reason that we were delated heretics, may be suspended and abrogated until a General Council, lawfully assembled, shall have decided all controversies in religion.

"Secondly, Lest this mutation should seem to set all men at liberty to live as they list, we require that it be enacted by this present Parliament that the prelates and their officers be removed from the place of judgment; granting unto them, not the less, the place of accusers in the presence of a temporal judge, before whom the Churchmen shall be bound to call any accused by them of heresy....

"Thirdly, We require, that all lawful defences be granted to the persons accused.... Also, that place be granted to the party accused to explain and interpret his own mind and meaning; which confession we require to be inserted in public Acts, and to be preferred to the depositions of any witnesses, seeing that none that is not found obstinate in his damnable opinion ought to suffer for religion.

"Lastly, We require, that our brethren be not damned for heretics, unless, by the manifest Word of God, they be convicted to have erred from that faith which the Holy Spirit witnesseth to be necessary to salvation....

"These things require we to be considered by you, who occupy the place of the Eternal God, who is God of order and truth, even in such sort as ye will answer in the presence of His throne judicial. And we require, further, that ye will favourably have respect to the tenderness of our consciences, and to the trouble which apparently will follow in this commonwealth, if the tyranny of the Prelates and of their adherents be not bridled by God and just laws. God move your hearts deeply to consider your own duties and our present troubles."

[Sidenote: The Regent makes large Promises of Protection and Reform.]

These petitions did we first present to the Queen Regent, because we were determined to enterprise nothing without her knowledge, most humbly requiring her favourable assistance in our just action. She spared not amiable looks, and good words in abundance; but she kept our bill in her pocket. When we required secretly of her Grace that our Petitions should be proposed to the whole Assembly, she answered that she did not think that expedient; for then would the whole ecclesiastical Estate be contrary to her proceedings. These at that time were great; for the matrimonial crown was asked, and in that Parliament granted. "But," said she, "as soon as order can be taken with these things, which now may be hindered by the Kirkmen, ye shall know my good mind; and, in the meantime, whatsoever I may grant unto you shall gladly be granted."

Still suspecting nothing of her falsehood, we were content to give place for a time to her pleasure and pretended reason. Yet we thought expedient to protest somewhat before the dissolution of Parliament; for our Petitions were manifestly known to the whole Assembly, as also that, for the Queen's pleasure, we ceased to pursue the uttermost....

Our protestations were publicly read, and we desired that they should be inserted in the common register; but by labours of enemies that was denied unto us. Nevertheless, the Queen Regent said, "Me will remember what is protested; and me shall put good order after this to all things that now be in controversy." Thus, after she had by craft obtained her purpose, we departed in good hope of her favours, praising God in our hearts that she was so well inclined towards godliness. The good opinion that we had of her sincerity caused us not only to spend our goods and hazard our bodies at her pleasure, but also, by our public letters written to that excellent servant of God, John Calvin, we did praise and commend her for excellent knowledge in God's Word and her good-will towards the advancement of His glory; requiring of him that, by his grave counsel and godly exhortation, he would animate her Grace constantly to follow that which in godly fashion she had begun. We did further sharply rebuke, both by word and writing, all such as appeared to suspect any venom of hypocrisy in her, or were contrary to that opinion which we had conceived of her godly mind.

[Sidenote: Treachery of the Regent: the Preachers are summoned.]

Suddenly, it became certain that we were deceived in our opinion, and abused by her craft. As soon as all things pertaining to the commodity of France were granted by us, and peace was contracted betwixt King Philip and France, and England and us, she began to spue forth, and disclose the latent venom of her double heart. She began to frown, and to look frowardly upon all such as she knew to favour the Evangel of Jesus Christ. She commanded her household to use all abominations at Easter; and she herself, to give example to others, did communicate with that idol, the Mass, in open audience; she controlled her household, and would know where every one received the Sacrament. It is supposed that after that day the Devil took more violent and strong possession in her than he had before; for, from that day forward, she appeared altogether altered, insomuch that her countenance and acts did declare the venom of her heart.

When, incontinently, the Queen caused our preachers to be summoned, we made intercession for them, beseeching her Grace not to molest them then in their ministry, unless any man were able to convict them of false doctrine. But she could not bridle her tongue from open blasphemy, and proudly said, "In despite of you and of your ministers both, they shall be banished out of Scotland, albeit they preached as truly as ever did St. Paul." This proud and blasphemous answer did greatly astonish us; and yet ceased we not most humbly to seek her favour, and by great diligence at last secured that the summonses should be delayed. Alexander, Earl of Glencairn, and Sir Hugh Campbell of Loudoun, knight, Sheriff of Ayr, were sent to reason with her, and to crave some performance of her manifold promises. To them she answered that it became not the subjects to burden their Princes with promises, further than it pleaseth them to keep these. Both these noblemen faithfully and boldly discharged their duty, and plainly forewarned her of the inconveniences that were to follow. Thereupon, somewhat astonished, she said she would advise.

[Sidenote: The Revival at Perth: Fury of the Regent.]

In the meantime the town of Perth, called St. Johnston, embraced the truth, and this did provoke her to a new fury; in which she urged the Lord Ruthven, Provost of that town, to suppress all such religion there. He replied that he could make their bodies come to her Grace, and prostrate themselves before her, until she was fully satiate of their blood, but that he could not promise to force them to act against their conscience. In a fury, she said that he was too malapert to give her such answer, and affirmed that both he and they should repent it. She solicited Master John Haliburton, Provost of Dundee, to apprehend Paul Methven, but he, fearing God, gave secret warning to the man to leave the town for a time. At Easter, she sent forth men whom she thought most able to persuade, with commission to induce Montrose, Dundee, St. Johnston, and such other places as had received the Evangel, to communicate with the idol of the Mass; but they had no success. The hearts of many were bent to follow the truth revealed, and did abhor superstition and idolatry.