CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. 251 the diamond-set jewel known as "the H" remained in the hands of the widow of Murray, who married Colin, the brother and successor of Argyll. Morton, in the course of the next years, actually outlawed Argyll for not restoring the jewels, which Lady Argyll professed to retain in pledge for money expended by Murray in the public service. The dispute was finally pacified by Elizabeth, Argyll restoring "the great H" and other diamonds to Morton.11 History, if closely interrogated, is rich in details about such personal matters as these, but about the economic conditions of a people is apt to be silent. We might suppose that "the Douglas wars," now ended, had reduced the country to distress and destitution. Edinburgh had for years been bereft of her richer citizens: many of their houses were burned: the timber-work of others had supplied the Castilians with fuel. Glasgow, not then commercially important, had been threatened and distressed by the Lennox-Hamilton raids. "Gauntlets" (Thomas Crawford) had despoiled the Hamilton tenantry in the North, Huntly's brother, Adam Gordon, had conquered the Forbeses and ruled Huntly's country at his will. The Borders, where public robbery was the rule, not the exception, had not only been devastated by Sussex and by Homes and Kers, but by the raids which Elliots and Armstrongs, Bells, Croziers, and Nixons, had been known to push as far as Biggar. Of the Highlands we know that the new Earl of Argyll (the Earl of the Darnley murder died about this time) hanged over 180 caterans in one raid of justice. Yet, despite war, anarchy, and plunder, Scotland had increased in wealth and population. Just after Mar's death on November II, 1572, Killigrew wrote to Cecil, "Methinks I see the noblemen's great credit decay in the country, and the barons, boroughs, and suchlike take more upon them, the ministry and religion increaseth, and the desire in them to prevent the practice of the Papists: the number of able men, both for horse and foot, very great and well furnished; their navy so augmented as it is a thing almost incredible." Yet Drury found Berwick flooded with Scots silver, valued at fifteen pence, but worth only ninepence. "A Scotch merchant declared that £100 English put into the mint would yield £1000 Scots." 12 It is probable that the prosperity noted by Killigrew, both now and later, was confined to the Lothians, Stirlingshire, and Fife. As we have seen, the preachers had been obliged to submit to a form of Episcopacy, and their liberties were more or less trammelled by 252 STATE OF THE KIRK. Morton, who also robbed them of their livelihood. But these things, after all, were the rebukes of a friend. Whatever else Morton might be, he was decidedly anti-papal; wherefore many sins were forgiven him by the preachers. He is reported to have said that they were meddlesome knaves who would be none the worse of a hanging. This tradition is more or less borne out by a report on the state of Scotland sent in 1594 to Pope Clement VIII. by the Jesuits in the country. They say that "Morton was a man of prudence, and exceedingly anxious that everything should be done for the public good of the kingdom. He did not persecute the Catholics, . . . but even showed them a certain amount of favour. As for the ministers of his own religion, he treated them as men of no character or consideration. He was in the habit of continually repeating that there was no room for comparing the most wealthy of the ministers with the poorest of the priests whom he had ever seen : that in the priest there was more fidelity, more politeness, more gravity, more hospitality, than in the whole herd of the others." The writer goes on to say that Morton was "asked to give four parishes to each minister," obviously that the preacher might become "a bloated pluralist." He himself "was anxious that these useless beings should be reduced to the fewest possible." So he gave them four churches apiece, but kept the revenues of three.18 This is not an impartial view: the ministers, on the other hand, were anxious to "plant" new kirks, as the records of the General Assembly prove, and were concerned about the ruinous condition of the buildings, some of which were used as sheepfolds. The preachers were so poor that they were allowed to keep taps, or alehouses. There must have been wealthier men in their ranks, or it would have been needless to forbid them to wear "silk hats," and garments remarked for "superfluous and vain cutting out," and "variant hues in clothing, as red, blue, yellow, and the like, which declares the lightness of the mind." "Costly gilding of knives or whingers" was also forbidden to the clergy, who, to be sure, needed whingers, for they, and their parishioners, were often prevented from attending church because they were involved in deadly feuds. 14 Learning was not on a high level. Archibald Douglas declined to adventure himself in the Greek Testament when examined for the parsonship of Glasgow; and a gifted preacher might be elected though ignorant of Latin. There were, indeed, men of learning and foreign education, like Rutherford, Ramsay, Syme, Henryson, and Smeton, with David MORTON'S CORRUPTION. 253 son, of St Leonard's (author of the play on Kirkcaldy's hanging), who wrote a poem against pluralists, calling Rutherford a goose : "Had gude John Knox not yit bene deid, It had not come unto this heid; Had they myntit till sic ane steir, He had maid hevin and eirth to heir." Davidson was banished by Morton: his poem shows the distaste of many of the preachers to the innovations of the Regent.15 "This new ordour that is tane says the courtier, in Davidson's Dialogue. "They sall be first that sall repent it," 1575, and onwards, did repent As a result of his manoeuvres, says the clerk, and the Kirk in of their concessions to Morton. the worthier clergy were starved and overworked, while scores of young men of family, intruded on parishes, exceeded in silk hats and gilded whingers, neglecting and dilapidating their cures. Out of twenty-seven summoned to render account of their conduct, only three appeared. Among these three was not the vicar of Carstairs, "who hath slain the Laird of Corston." 16 Patrick Adamson of Paisley, later Archbishop of St Andrews, "waited not on his cure." The new bishops aimed at being independent of the censures of the General Assembly, and at avoiding the care of any particular flock. They were in simoniacal dependence on the great nobles, and were accused of private immorality. Under Morton, in fact, the Kirk was being reduced to the same condition as the Church before the Reformation. Ignorance, protligacy, secular robbery, under a thin disguise, of ecclesiastical revenues, were all returning: ministers sold their livings. The bishops had none of the sacerdotal and mystic character which attaches to them in the Catholic faith, and even to some extent in the Anglican community. As rulers and organisers they had little or no authority. Morton's personal attitude, considering what the Jesuits say of him, is hard to understand. Politically, he was anti-Catholic, and struggled hard at this time to secure a defensive league with England and assistance in money against France and Mary's party. This Elizabeth, though urged by Killi 254 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. grew to assent, declined to provide. She finally deserted Morton, like her other Protestant allies in Scotland, France, and Holland. Mere need of money, doubtless, was one of Morton's motives in his dealings with the Kirk. He also foresaw their turbulent interference with the State. But possibly, despite the cant which he knew how to use, he was really averse by taste from the rugged austerity of Presbyterianism. The Kirk, and the country, whose character needed the severity and righteousness of the Calvinistic dispensation, were thus in hard straits. The Presbyterian establishment was on the point of becoming the tool of profligate politicians. A glance at the proceedings of General Assemblies will serve to show the ecclesiastical perils of Scotland at this moment of transition. In August 1573 the Assembly met at Edinburgh, earls, lords, barons, bishops, superintendents, commissioners, and preachers being present. A recent Assembly of 1572, as we saw, had been shunned by the nobles, who, perhaps, were not minded to forfeit, banish, and slay all the Catholics of the country. Severe measures, however, were taken. On May 4, 1574, "a priest was hanged in Glasgow for saying of mass." 17 This was probably the priest who accused Archbishop Hamilton of Darnley's murder, on the strength, as he averred, of something revealed to him under seal of confession. Thousands of Catholics were driven abroad-some of them men of learning; more were swordsmen, who took foreign service in France and Sweden. To return to the Assembly: its proceedings usually began by "trial of superintendents and bishops." The democratic Assembly delighted to rake up episcopal misdeeds. Douglas, the "tulchan " Archbishop of St Andrews, and the Bishop of Dunkeld were "delated": the former for acts of negligence; the latter on suspicion of simony, perjury, and want of due severity against idolaters like the Earl of Atholl. Strong measures were to be taken against all who harboured excommunicated persons. The Bishop of Galloway, a most undesirable prelate in all respects, was accused of being of the Queen's party; of praying for Mary; of giving thanks for the slaying of Lennox; of comparing himself to Moses and David, and was ordered to do penance in sackcloth. Morton set forth a godly preamble as to his intention about due payment of ministers. Inquisition into the crime of witchcraft was ordained; with other matters. MONGREL EPISCOPACY. 255 In the Assembly of March 1574 the Archbishop of St Andrews was "put at" again,-for being a pluralist, for nepotism, for not preaching, and other misdemeanours. The Bishop of Dunkeld had not yet excommunicated Atholl, and had allowed a corpse with a super-cloth over it to be carried into a church "in popish manner." The Bishop of Moray was delated of an amorous intrigue with a young widow. Censorship of literature was attempted; the process lasted for some years. It was decided that the powers of bishops in their dioceses should not exceed those of the superintendents, and that they should continue to be subject to the discipline of the General Assembly. Morton, as we saw, had induced the Kirk to yield to him their thirds of the benefices; he would take care that the stipends to each minister should be duly paid within each parish. As soon as the preachers permitted this course, Morton simplified matters by assigning several kirks to each minister, and keeping the stipends himself. The Assembly remonstrated, but to no purpose. It continued to be troubled about the morals of the Bishop of Moray; about the singular reluctance of the Bishop of Dunkeld to excommunicate his most powerful neighbour; about the introduction of heretical books "by Poles, crammers" (keepers of stalls, or crames), "and others"; and about the destruction of monuments of idolatry." Many kirks were found to be ruinous throughout the country. 66 The assent of the Kirk to the arrangement made at Leith in 1572 had only been provisional, and subject to parliamentary alteration. At this juncture, 1575, a new Knox arose in the person of Andrew Melville, and the great question of Episcopacy became prominent, with all its consequences of civil war waiting to be developed. The quarrel is one which tempts to partisanship. It has been shown that Morton's new mongrel kind of Church government was of the most profligate and ruinous kind. The Scriptural and apostolic character of Episcopacy, with all the arguments from the New Testament and from ecclesiastical tradition, cannot here be discussed. Morton's kind of Episcopacy, at all events, was unscriptural, untraditional, and intolerable. Here is an example of the working of the system. Morton's children were all bastards, and were provided for thus. "Pension by William, Bishop of Aberdeen, of £500 to Archibald Douglas, son natural of the Regent." "Pension by Henry, Commendator of Dunkeld, to James Douglas, son natural of the Regent." "Pension by Robert, Bishop of Caithness, |