WAR OF KIRK AND STATE (1563).

131 vain pointed out to Knox the nature of his act. He was resolute he appeared before the Court attended by a vast crowd. Mary laughed, Knox says, and promised to repay him for making her weep. She was foiled, and "the rigid minister prevailed." Knox browbeat the Council and judges, who, of course, had preceded him in convoking unlawful assemblies. He was unanimously acquitted, though if it was illegal to assemble a multitude to overawe justice, he ought to have been condemned. Mary asked whether "to make convocation of her lieges was not treason? Ruthven, whom "all men hated," says Randolph, observed, "Nay, for he makes convocation of the people to hear prayer and sermon almost daily, . . . we think it no treason." Mary brushed the slender sophistry away. Knox maintained that what he had done "I have done at the commandment of the general Kirk of this realm." As Mr Hume Brown writes, Knox acted "with the consent of the faithful in Edinburgh, though probably on his own initiative." 22 Knox himself tells us that he had a general charge "to make advertisement whenever danger should appear.' "' 23 The "general Kirk" had no more legal right than the members of any other "band" to convocate the lieges and overawe justice. It was against this practice of theirs that Mary's son, James VI., had to fight so long and sore a battle. But the Council had been, and again might be, in the same case as Knox. Thus the Kirk won a great triumph over the State, and appeared as imperium in imperio. To modern minds it seems that the Council should have committed Knox, while the judges of Cranstoun and Armstrong might have acquitted them, as they had merely disturbed an assembly not lawful in the eye of the law which prohibited the mass. General Assembly supported Knox and ratified his behaviour. The antagonism of Kirk and State and the right of the Kirk to call men to arms were thus proclaimed: nor was the condition of things much improved, in essentials, till the Revolution of 1688.

A

At this date (December 21) Randolph mentions a domestic incident which yet lives in poetry. The queen's French apothecary had an intrigue with a French maid of the queen's, and administered drugs to obviate the results. Both of the guilty pair were hanged. This is the basis of the famous ballad of "The Queen's Maries," or "Mary Hamilton." No Mary was of the Hamilton House: no Mary, of course, fell into this disgrace and doom.2 Knox gives

24

132

TYRANNY OF PULPITEERS (1564).

a version different from that of Randolph, and alludes to "the ballads of that age." He also avers that "shame hasted marriage between John Sempill and Mary Livingstone," one of the queen's Maries. Dates appear to confute this allegation. Randolph, on January 9, 1564, mentions the wedding as to be celebrated between this and Shrovetide 1564, and on February 19 expects the nuptials in about a week. On January 9 Bedford was being invited to the bridal,25 which was celebrated on March 4, 1565.28 Obviously there was no violent hurry, and it is necessary to be watchful in accepting Knox's anecdotes. Mary granted lands to the bride and bridegroom on March 9, 1564.27 The irritation of the Deity declared itself in "wet in great abundance," which fell on January 20, and froze. There were also "seen in the firmament battles arrayed, spears and other weapons. . . . But the queen and our Court made merry,” says Knox, though rain and an aurora borealis occurred in midwinter. And yet the preachers were doing their duty. For a lapse from chastity "the Lord Treasurer, on Sunday next, must do penance before the whole congregation, and Mr Knox make the sermon." 28

Of far more real historical importance than the intrigues as to Mary's marriage was the tyranny of the pulpiteers. The rift between them and the Council grew daily wider as the General Assembly of June drew near. "The threitnyngis of the prechouris wer feirfull," writes Knox in an orthography which takes nothing from the terror. The daily menaces, bellowed in sermon or breathed in prayer, hampered a Government which had to deal with statesmen of this world. In England Elizabeth, from her seat, bade a preacher be silent when his remarks displeased her. In Scotland statesmen dared not face the preachers openly, and fight out once for all the battle of secular freedom. Lethington ventured to say that "men know not what they speak when they call the mass idolatry." Knox in the pulpit prophesied evil for Lethington, and lived to see his ruin. Meanwhile Lethington smiled; "we must recant, and burn our bill, for the preachers are angry." At the General Assembly Argyll, Murray, Morton, Glencairn, the Earl Marischal, and Rothes held aloof from the Brethren, as did even the faithful laird of Pitarro, Wishart. A debate was held, in which Lethington ironically advised Knox to "moderate himself" in his political prayers, which, as Randolph

DUDLEY PROPOSED FOR MARY'S HAND.

133

"Others may

has shown us, were rather in the nature of curses. imitate the like liberty, albeit not with the same modesty and foresight." An argument followed, which Knox reports in thirty-six pages, the last pages of the History which he certainly wrote himself. (The Fifth Book, Laing thought, "has been chiefly derived from Knox's papers by some unknown hand.") It is needless to dwell on a controversy in which Lethington had to fight for modern freedom from clerical dictation on a field composed of texts chosen from the sacred books of an ancient oriental "peculiar people." Lethington thought that no contemporary of his own had a right to imitate Jehu, and kill people whom Knox called "idolaters." Knox, of course, was of the opposite opinion. Lethington forgot to counter Knox with Hosea's denunciation of Jehu and his crime. In the long discussion, of course, neither party converted the other. "In all that time the Earl of Moray was so estranged from John Knox that neither by word or letter was there any communication between them."

Meanwhile, as regarded Mary's marriage, Randolph found abundant goodwill, but no advance in business. His difficulties were caused by Elizabeth. First, she wanted Mary to marry infinitely below her rank; next, to marry a man known to be in love with herself. "The world would judge worse of him" (Dudley) "than of any living man, if he should not rather lose his life than alter his thought." 29 Finally, Mary had no assurance of any reward if she did marry Elizabeth's favourite. Murray and Lethington even put forward Darnley, though not with conviction. Knox had suspected Mary because she kept no garrison on Inchkeith. Randolph suspected her because she introduced a garrison.30 On March 30 Randolph at last explicitly named Dudley as Elizabeth's choice for Mary. "Is that," said Mary, "in conformity with her promise to use me as her sister or daughter?" What did Mary take by it, if Elizabeth had children? On April 30 Kirkcaldy warned Randolph that Lennox was coming to Scotland, and that Mary might bring Bothwell back "to shake out of her pocket against us Protestants." 31 As for Lennox, on June 16, 1563, Elizabeth had requested Mary, as we saw, to consider the several suits of Lennox and his wife. By May 22, 1564, Randolph announced that Lennox was coming to "sue his own right" as to his Scottish lands. Yet Elizabeth, as Dr Hay Fleming says, "was ignoble enough to suggest that Mary should take the blame by withdrawing

134

ELIZABETH OPPOSES LENNOX'S COMING.

that permission" (for Lennox to visit Scotland) "which at her desire she had granted." 32

Mary's Council had meanwhile determined that she should not meet Elizabeth this year. Mary, says Randolph, felt "sorrow and grief" (June 5). Randolph returned to England in June, and Lethington complained to Cecil of English delays and want of frankness (June 23). Murray told Cecil that he had not opposed Lennox's home-coming, that his arrival bred no fears for religion, that the Protestants enjoyed "liberty of conscience in such abundance as our hearts can wish," and that Mary could not in honour prevent what she had granted at Elizabeth's request. If Elizabeth objects, let her refuse permission to Lennox.33 The truth is that on May 3 Knox had warned Randolph against permitting Lennox and Darnley to come back. Her wanton and wicked will rules all." 34 On this hint Cecil told Lethington that the Scottish friends of England "like not Lennox's coming." "I cannot tell whom you take to be your best friends," answered Lethington, but he and Murray had been England's allies, and they have rather furthered than hindered the arrival of Lennox. If Elizabeth objects, Lethington is amazed, "seeing how earnestly her majesty did recommend unto me my Lord of Lennox's cause." Lethington then, by Cecil's desire, returned to him his own letter, containing Elizabeth's request for the refusal of permission to Lennox to enter Scotland. Mary replied with equal spirit, and thereby vexed Elizabeth. That inconstant woman was so entangled in her own nets that, according to Mr Froude, she was "harassed into illness, and in the last stage of despair." In point of fact, it was not Elizabeth but Cecil that was ill when the queen wrote to him, in Latin, asking him to find "some good excuse" ("something kind" Mr Froude renders aliquid boni) "to be inserted in Randolph's despatches." 35

In September, after returning from a northern progress, Mary sent Sir James Melville to the English Court. The knight tells the tale, in memoirs written long after the event, and not too trustworthy. Murray and Lethington were still resolute as to Lennox's visit. It was by Elizabeth's wish, and they would not waver with her waverings. Kirkcaldy of Grange wrote very frankly to Cecil about the Dudley marriage. "If you drive time, I fear necessity may compel us to marry where we may. . . . Ye may cause us take the Lord Darnley" (September 9). Melville went to Court, and his Memoirs contain a lively account of his strange

ELIZABETH CAUSES

"

STRANGE TRAGEDIES.”

135

experiences. Every one knows how, when Elizabeth created Dudley Earl of Leicester, she "tickled him smilingly on the neck." Every one has heard of Elizabeth's efforts to extract compliments at Mary's expense, and how she danced "high and disposedly," and called Darnley "yonder long lad," "beardless and lady-faced," says Melville. Melville, in fact, had a secret commission to secure Darnley's presence in Scotland. On his return he did not conceal from Mary that Elizabeth was utterly insincere: offered Leicester, but would never part with him. But to offer Leicester was Randolph, with Bedford, now authorised.36 The vaguest references were made to Mary's recognition as Elizabeth's heir. The absurd, if not immoral, proposal of a ménage à trois, Leicester and Mary to live with Elizabeth, was actually hazarded.

From this point the diplomacy is so prolix and entangled that only the most important facts can be noted. Throughout, the object of Elizabeth was to "drive time" and to perplex. Till March in 1565 Murray and Lethington seem to have sided with their mistress. Lethington's one object, pursued with a passion strange in the man, was the union of Scotland and England. To have secured this, he says, will bring as much honour as was won by the men who fought beside Bruce for freedom. But he was to be foiled by the cunning of Elizabeth; by her passion for Leicester, whom she was pretending to offer to Mary; by the appearance (which Cecil, Leicester, and Elizabeth procured) of Darnley in Scotland; by the consequent revival of the Lennox and Hamilton feud; by a new feud raised between Murray and Darnley; and by the sleepless opposition of the godly. From all these causes, aided by Mary's sudden caprice for Darnley, and by Elizabeth's opposition to the Darnley as to all other marriages, the amity between England and Scotland was broken, and the wars of the Congregation began again, as before, under the sanction and with the aid of Elizabeth. On her lies the first blame : she had at last broken down the self-restraint and aroused the temper of Mary. Then followed the "strange tragedies" which Lethington had predicted. These are the chief circumstances and influences in the space between October 1564 and Mary's resolution to marry Darnley, announced in April 1565.

To follow events more closely, Lennox's restoration was publicly proclaimed at Edinburgh Cross on October 13. Since 1543 Lennox had been "English." His wife, daughter of Margaret