IN this year falls the four-hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Buchanan, the foremost Scottish scholar of his age, and a notable figure in the work of the first Reformation under John Knox. Though George Buchanan was more distinguished for his learning than for his godliness, the latter seems not to be doubted, at least during his closing years, by discerning contemporaries. He suffered considerably for his exposure of the errors and abuses of the Church of Rome, and he ranks among the “Scots Worthies” of Reformation times, whose lives have been interestingly sketched by John Howie.
George Buchanan was born near Killearn, in Stirlingshire, “about the beginning of February, 1506.” On his father’s side he was of Celtic descent, and the probability is that Gaelic was his mother tongue. His mother’s name was Agnes Heriot. She appears to have been a woman of excellent qualities, which shone in her upbringing of a numerous family amid straitened circumstances after her husband’s death. George gave such signs of a talent for learning in his early boyhood that, at the age of fourteen, his uncle, James Heriot, “determined to send him to the University of Paris, then the dream of all the studious youth of Scotland.” Here he spent two years, and began the study of the Latin language, for the knowledge of which he was so distinguished in after life. At the end of this period his uncle died, and he was compelled to return to Scotland, where, after a time, he resumed his studies at the University of St. Andrews, and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1525. In the following year he again returned to the University of Paris, and in face of a hard struggle with poverty, completed his literary course in 1528. In 1529 he became a teacher in one of the most flourishing colleges in Paris, where he exercised a powerful influence on the education of the
students. Six years hence he returned to his native country as tutor to the Earl of Cassilis, and at this stage he began to manifest his Protestant inclinations, for he wrote two poems against the Franciscan Order in the Church, in which he lashed their vices, with the result that he was cast into prison. Making his escape, however, he fled to England and thence to France. Here he spent a number of years, and taught in a great school at Bordeaux. In 1547, along with several eminent men of learning, he proceeded to Portugal, to teach in a new college under the principalship of a distinguished man named Gouvéa. The college became obnoxious to the Jesuits, and Buchanan and two other teachers “were thrown into the prisons of the Inquisition.” During this time he made his well-known Latin version of the Psalms. After this he spent several years in France, and it was now he began to study the Bible more deeply and closely than ever he did before, that he might learn the truth about the controversies that were being carried on in the Church. In this study he spent the five years that preceded his final return to Scotland, which took place in 1561, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. “It was probably some time in 1561, after an exile of twenty-two years,” says Hume Brown, his biographer, “that Buchanan returned to his native country; and there, with the exception of one flying visit to Paris and a short sojourn in England, he thenceforth remained for the rest of his life.”
It is at this stage in his history that the spirit of the Reformer becomes more conspicuous in him. He is now a tutor at the Scottish Court, and the English resident there bears testimony to his character in a letter as follows:—”There is with the Queen, one called Mr. George ‘Bowhanan,’ a Scottish man, very well learned . . . very godly and honest.” He now became intimate, as an instructor, with the famous Mary, Queen of Scots, but he did not hesitate to show that his sympathies were with the leaders of the Protestant party on the questions at issue between her and them. He sat for several years in the General Assembly of the Reformed Church, and acted as a member of several important Commissions engaged in the work of reformation; while in 1568, though a layman, he was called to be Moderator, and presided over the Assembly’s deliberations.
He continued on friendly terms with Mary until the murder of her husband Darnley in 1567, but being entirely convinced of her guilt in this matter his friendly feeling “was changed to indignation and contempt, and thenceforward he took his place among the most formidable of her enemies.” He wrote his famous Detectio against her, entitled in the Scots translation, “Ane Detectioun of the Duinges of Marie, Quene of Scottes, touchand the murder of hir husband, and hir conspiracie, etc.” This piece is one of the most powerful testimonies to her guilt.
Buchanan, as may be expected, did great service to the cause of education in Scotland. Along with the other reformers he
endeavoured to set up the noble system of national education set forth in the Book of Discipline, but his and their efforts were much frustrated by the dissensions of the times. “His poems, also, especially his version of the Psalms—systematically used in schools in the teaching of Latin—themselves established for him a solid claim on the gratitude of his countrymen.” He was appointed by the good Regent Moray, Principal of the College of St. Leonard, at St. Andrews, in 1566, and held the office for four years, until he became tutor to King James.
It is impossible for us to give anything here but the most meagre account of Buchanan’s life, a great many interesting particulars being omitted. We cannot, however, close without referring to his political opinions. Strange it is that, in that time, when the tyrannical doctrine of the divine right of kings was being maintained by the Stuarts, and when there was much political servility, there were found men who had the most enlightened views on the relations which should subsist between king and subjects. Buchanan wrote a treatise on the subject—De Jure Regni—and his main positions seems to be “that kings exist by the will and for the good of the people, that they may be brought to account for misgovernment, and that under certain circumstances, they may be punished by death.” We are not to conclude from this that he held any wild revolutionary opinions, or that he believed in the dangerous idea that the voice of the people is the voice of God. No; but he was an enemy to the unlawful power that was assumed in those ancient days. His tract was written—as were almost all his works—in Latin, which he thought was to become the universal tongue in Europe. A translation of it, bound up with the Lex Rex of Samuel Rutherford, appeared in 1843, the year of the Disruption. Buchanan’s last literary work was a History of Scotland down to his own time, which is chiefly valuable from the secular standpoint.
Buchanan, it may be said in conclusion, though to all appearance a godly man, was not fired with the same measure of heavenly zeal as John Knox or Andrew Melville. Though strong in his own convictions, he seems to have lived on a lower platform of spiritual life, and kept rather close to the world and worldly learning, which circumstances undoubtedly made him much less a spiritual force than otherwise he would have been. Still, his path gets brighter towards the end. It is recorded that he regretted, in his later years, the follies of some of his early secular poems. On his death-bed he was visited by Mr. Andrew Melville, Mr. James Melville, and Mr. Thomas Buchanan. He showed them the Epistle Dedicatory to the King of his “History,” then passing through the press, and Mr. Andrew called his attention to some defects in the wording of it, when he replied, “I may do no more for thinking on another matter.” “What is that?” says Mr. Andrew. “To die!” he answered; “but I leave that and many more things for you to help.” Then they left him, and went to
“the printar’s wark house,” where they found the printer at the point of setting up the story of Queen Mary and Rizzio, which they thought Buchanan handled rather plainly “for the time.” James Melville, who is the relater of the incident, proceeds: “Therefore staying the printer from proceeding, we came to Mr. George again, and found him bedfast, and asking him how he did, ‘Even going the way of welfare,’ says he. Mr. Thomas, his cousin, shows him of the hardness of that part of the story, that the King would be offended with it, and it might stay all the work. ‘Tell me, man,’ says he, ‘if I have told the truth?’ ‘Yes,’ says Mr. Thomas, ‘sir, I think so.’ ‘I will bide his feud, and all his kin’s, then,’ quoth he. ‘Pray, pray to God for me, and let Him direct all.'” James Melville concludes: “So, by the printing of his Chronicle was ended, that most learned, wise, and godly man ended this mortal life.” It is also told that, shortly before his death, the King sent him several messages, and at last a threatening letter, to appear within twenty days, but that George sent him back a letter of admonition, and “in the end told him that he could run the hazard of his Majesty’s displeasure without danger,” for that “by the time limited, he would be where few kings or great men would be honoured to enter.” He died at Edinburgh, 28th September, 1582, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and was buried, John Howie says, “in the common place, though worthy to have been laid in marble, for in his lifetime he used to condemn and despise pompous monuments.”
Ecclesiastical Discipline.—It is not surprising that the Report issued last week by the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline should attract much public attention. It has been anxiously expected for a long time. We did not anticipate that any facts would be brought to light not already well known to persons acquainted with the controversy, but the confirmation of the alleged departures from the ecclesiastical order ought to establish—indeed, must settle beyond question—the reputation for vigilance and ecclesiastical fidelity of those who, painfully conscious of disorder in the church, have appealed in vain to the Bishops for relief. Such persons will note with much satisfaction that, although the Commissioners prescribe a remedy, the effect of which to maintain Reformation principles in the Established Church is, to say the least, very dubious, they unanimously declare their opinion that sundry “practices of special gravity and significance,” which they enumerate as existing at present in some of the churches of the land, and which they denounce as “illegal,” and clearly inconsistent with, and subversive of, the teaching of the Church of England,” should “receive no toleration”; and that it is both “unnecessary and undesirable to postpone proceedings for their prevention or repression” until the reforms they recommend can be carried into effect.