Kitabı oku: «The Story of the Scottish Covenants in Outline», sayfa 2
Rupture of French Alliance
Not the least striking result of the Reformation was the complete bursting up of the ancient alliance between France and Scotland, and the drawing together of Scotland and England – that England which Scotland had so long and so recently regarded as its “auld enemy.” The importance of this result is frankly acknowledged by Teulet, one of the most competent, careful, and candid of French historical students. He puts the matter thus: “Scotland, which was for so many ages the devoted ally of France, the rein, as our ancient kings said, with which they restrained the encroachments of England, was unwilling to abdicate its nationality and become a French province. Moreover, the unbridled excesses of the French troops in Scotland, no less than the shameless rapacity of the French agents, at last aroused a general spirit of resistance, and England soon found in the rupture of the ancient alliance between France and Scotland an ample indemnification for the loss of Calais.”
French Excesses
The enormities of the French in Scotland were so great, that Mary of Guise, in writing to her brothers, affirmed that the peasantry were in consequence so reduced to despair that they frequently committed suicide. Although these unbridled excesses are enough to explain the revulsion of feeling towards the French, they do not quite account for the sudden alteration towards the English. The change, indeed, was so sudden and so unlikely that some Southerns thought, and naturally thought, it was “a traine to betrappe” their nation.
Scots and English
So great had been the Scotch hatred of the English, that, from the French who came over to help them after Pinkie, they were said to have bought English prisoners, that they might have the pleasure of putting them to death, although they could ill afford the price which they paid ungrudgingly. This hatred, so bitter, so fierce, and so recent, could not have been wiped out by any French oppression had not the Scots been now finding themselves ranged on the same side as the English in the great religious struggle, which was submerging old feuds, breaking up old compacts, and turning the world upside down.
Band of 1560
The oppression by the French, and the help expected from the English army, are both referred to in the band or covenant entered into on the 27th of April 1560. Knox says that this band was made by “all the nobilitie, barronis, and gentilmen, professing Chryst Jesus in Scotland,” and by “dyveris utheris that joynit with us, for expelling of the Frenche army; amangis quham the Erle of Huntlie was principall.” He does not name any other person who signed, although he copied the band itself into his “History”; but the original document was found among the Hamilton MSS., and it bears about a hundred and fifty signatures of noblemen and gentlemen, including those of the Duke of Chatelherault, the Earls of Arran, Huntly, Argyll, Glencairn, Rothes, and Morton, James Stewart (afterwards the Regent Murray), and the Abbots of Kinloss, Coupar, and Kilwinning. All those who adhibited their names did not do so on the same day. Huntly signed on the 28th of April; Morton and twenty-seven others on the 6th of May.
Treaty of Edinburgh
The French had fortified Leith, but were so hard pressed by the English and the Scots that they were constrained to make the Treaty of Edinburgh, with Queen Elizabeth’s representatives, on the 6th of July 1560. It was by that treaty, or rather – to be more strictly accurate – in virtue of the concessions in the separate “accord” between the French and the Scots of the same date, and which is referred to in the treaty, that the Scots were able to throw off for ever the merciless tyranny of their old allies and the unbearable yoke of the Papacy. These concessions provided for a meeting of Parliament; and next month that Parliament repealed the Acts favouring the Church of Rome, abolished the Pope’s jurisdiction in Scotland, prohibited the celebration of mass under pain of death for the third conviction, and ratified the Confession of Faith drawn up by Knox, Wynram, Spottiswoode, Willock, Douglas, and Row.
Mary Queen of Scots returned from France to her own country in August 1561, and a year later made her first northern progress, in which she went as far as Inverness. Huntly, notwithstanding his having signed the band of 1560, was regarded as the lay head of the Papists in Scotland, and grave doubts were entertained by many of the Protestants as to the results of this progress of the young Queen.
Band of 1562
Knox was then in Ayrshire, and, alarmed by the rumours which reached him, he prevailed on many of the barons and gentlemen of that county to enter into another band, or covenant, at Ayr, on the 4th of September 1562, in order to be prepared for any attempt that might be made to put down Protestantism. It does not appear that it had any influence on the course of events in the North, but it probably had a considerable, though indirect, influence in restraining those in the South, who might have been inclined to help Huntly had there been any prospect of their being able to do so successfully. Those who took the band were not called upon to show their faithfulness in the field. Huntly – through perversity, stupidity, or suspicion – put himself completely out of the Queen’s graces. His forces were defeated, he died on the field of battle, one of his sons was executed, and another imprisoned.
The Queen’s Demission
On Thursday, the 24th of July 1567, the Queen, then a prisoner in Loch Leven Castle, was prevailed upon (by threats, she afterwards said) to demit the government in favour of her infant son, James, then thirteen months old. The General Assembly had met on the preceding Monday in the Over Tolbooth of Edinburgh; and on Friday, the 25th, the nobles, barons, and commissioners of towns, who were present, agreed to and subscribed certain “articles.”
Articles of 1567
These articles really formed a band for subverting the mass, destroying monuments of idolatry, setting up the true religion through the whole realm, increasing ministers’ stipends, reforming schools, colleges, and universities, easing the poor of their teinds, punishing vice, crimes, and offences, especially the murder of Darnley, defending the young prince, bringing him up in the fear of God, and obliging future kings and rulers to promise, before their coronation and inauguration, to maintain, defend, and set forward, the true religion. The subscribers also consented and offered “to reforme themselves according to the Booke of God.” In all they numbered about eighty. Of these, two or three certainly knew of the plot against Darnley before it was carried out; and they may have subscribed these articles to avert suspicion.
St Bartholomew’s Massacre
The dreadful massacre of the Huguenots, begun in Paris on St Bartholomew’s day 1572, excited consternation and horror in Scotland. Believing that all the other Protestants in Europe were to be similarly dealt with, the Privy Council summoned a convention, to be held at Edinburgh on the 20th of October, to consider the impending danger and the means by which it might be averted. Unfortunately for the success of the convention, the lieges had been summoned to meet at Jedburgh on the 22nd to make a raid upon the border thieves; and the Earl of Mar, then Regent, was drawing near his end at Stirling. None of the nobles and few of the lairds attended the convention; but a number of proposals were agreed to, that they might be sent to the Regent and the Privy Council. One of these proposals was that a public humiliation, or fast, should be held throughout the whole of Scotland during the last eight days of November. Another was that the Protestants of the realm should enter into a solemn band, that they might be ready on all occasions to resist the enemy. There is evidence to show that the fast was observed in Edinburgh; but, if the band was ever drawn up, no copy of it seems to have survived, nor any record of its having been entered into. The suggestion, however, was not fruitless. In the following January, Parliament enacted that no one should be reputed a loyal subject to the King, but should be punished as a rebel, who did not profess the true religion; and that those who had made profession thereof, and yet had departed from their due obedience to his Majesty, should not be received to his mercy and favour, until they anew gave confession of their faith; and promised to continue “in the confessioun of the trew religioun” in time coming, and to maintain the King’s authority; and also that they would, “at the uttermest of thair power, fortifie, assist and mantene the trew preichouris and professouris of Christis religioun,” against all enemies and gainstanders of the same, of whatever nation, estate, or degree, who had bound themselves, or assisted, to set forward and execute the cruel decrees of the Council of Trent, injuriously called, by the adversaries of God’s truth, “The Haly League.” By this time the “Tulchan Bishops” had been obtruded on the Church of Scotland.
The King’s Confession
All the earlier covenants were eclipsed in interest and importance by the one drawn up by John Craig, and commonly called “The King’s Confession,” sometimes “The Second Confession of Faith,” and sometimes “The Negative Confession.” In it the corruptions of the Papacy are denounced and renounced in terse language and with refreshing vigour. As John Row puts it: “This wes the touch-stone to try and discern Papists from Protestants.” And yet, notwithstanding its searching and solemn words, it failed in at least one notable instance as a touch-stone. The original document, signed by James the Sixth and his household on the 28th of January 1580-81, found its way to France, but fortunately was sent back again to this country – to Scot of Scotstarvit – and is now in the Advocates’ Library. This covenant was subscribed in 1581 by all ranks and classes of the people.
Because of “the great dangers which appeared to hang over the kirk and countrie,” a special meeting of the General Assembly was convened on the 6th of February 1587-8. In the fifteenth session, it was agreed that ministers should “travell diligentlie with the noblemen, barons, and gentlemen, to subscribe the Confession of Faith.” In accordance with this resolution, the Negative Confession was again signed by the King, and nearly a hundred other persons, including several of the leading nobles, on the 25th of February, at Holyrood.
