The infant reformation had scarcely been established, when its safety was endangered by the arrival in Scotland of Mary, Queen of Scots. This princess having been married in early life to the French dauphin, was educated in the court of France, under the auspices of her uncle, the cardinal of Lorraine, and nursed up in a blind attachment to popery and arbitrary power. Every means had been employed, before she left France, to prejudice her mind against the reformers, and the religion which had been embraced by her subjects. The willing tool of an artful and deep-laid policy, she was taught that it would be the glory of her reign to bring back her kingdom to the obedience of Rome, and to co-operate with the popish princes of the continent, who had formed a plan for the universal extirpation of heresy. She arrived at Leith in August 1561, and was received by the good people of Edinburgh and Leith with every demonstration of joyous loyalty. She had hardly landed, however, when orders were issued for the celebration of the mass in her private chapel. The ministers regarded this direct breach of the law passed by the parliament, as a sure sign of the queen’s resolution to set at defiance all that had been done against popery and on behalf of the reformed religion. Many, however, of the common people, animated by the sudden fervour of loyalty inspired by the presence of their young and lovely queen, began to justify her, and declare their resolution to defend her in the enjoyment of her own religion. Even the lords of the congregation, though at first highly incensed at her conduct, were no sooner admitted into her presence, than, soothed and flattered by the fair speeches of this insinuating princess, they began to cool in their religious zeal. The effects of this transformation on the nobility are thus curiously described by an old historian of the period:—
“Every man, as he came up to the court, accused them that were before him; but after they had remained a certain space, they came out as quiet as the former. On perceiving this, Campbell of Kinyeanleuch, a man of some humour, and zealous in the cause, said to Lord Ochiltree, whom he met on his way to court, ‘My lord, now ye are come last of all: and I perceive that the fire edge is not yet off you; but I fear that, after the holy water of the court be sprinkled upon you, ye shall become as temperate as the rest. For I have been here now five days, and at first nothing was heard but—Down with the mass, hang the priest; but after they had been twice or thrice at the abbey, all that fervency passed. I think there be some enchantment, whereby men are bewitched’.”
There was one man, however, whom neither the blandishments of the court, nor the defection of his friends, could induce to desert his principles, or cool in his attachment to the cause of the reformation. Knox, the intrepid reformer, perceiving that the queen was determined on prosecuting her designs, and that preparations were making for the celebration of mass in a more public and pompous manner than she had ventured on at first, took occasion to denounce the evils of idolatry from the pulpit, concluding his sermon with these remarkable words: “One mass is more fearful to me, than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm, of purpose to suppress the whole religion.” On hearing of this sermon, the queen sent for Knox, and held a long conference with him. She charged him with having taught the people to receive a religion different from that which was allowed by their princes. He replied, that true religion derived its origin and authority, not from princes, but from God; that princes were often most ignorant on this point; and referred to David, and to the primitive Christians. “Yea,” said the queen: “but none of those men raised the sword against their princes.” “Yet, you cannot deny,” said Knox, “that they resisted; for those that do not obey the commandment, do in some sort resist.” “But they resisted not with the sword.” “God, madam, had not given to them the power and the means.” “Think you, then,” said the queen, “that subjects, having the power, may resist their princes!” “If princes exceed their bounds, madam,” replied the reformer, “no doubt they may be resisted, even by power. For no greater honour is to be given to kings than God has commanded to be given to father and mother. But the father may be struck with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children. Now, madam, if the children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison till the frenzy is over, think you, madam, that the children do any wrong? Even so, madam, it is with princes that would murder the children of God that are subject unto them.”
On hearing these bold sentiments, so different from anything that she had been accustomed to, Mary stood, for nearly a quarter of an hour, silent and amazed. At length, addressing the reformer, she said, “Weel, then, I perceive that my subjects shall obey you, and not me.” “God, forbid,” answered he; “but my travail is that both princes and subjects obey God. And think not, madam, that wrong is done to you when ye are willed to be subject to God; for He it is that subjects the people under princes: yea, God craves of kings that they be, as it were, foster-fathers to his kirk, and commands queens to be nurses unto His people.” “Yea,” quoth she, “but ye are not the kirk that I will nourish. I will defend the kirk of Rome; for it is, I think, the true kirk of God.” “Your will, madam, is no reason; neither doth your thought make the Roman harlot to be the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ.” He added, he was ready to prove that the Roman church had, within five hundred years, degenerated farther from the purity of religion taught by the apostles than the Jewish church, which crucified Christ, had degenerated from the ordinances God gave them by Moses. “My conscience is not so,” said the queen. “Conscience, madam, requires knowledge; and I fear that right knowledge ye have none.” “But I have both heard and read.” “So, madam, did the Jews, who crucified Christ Jesus; they read the law and the prophets, and heard them interpreted after their manner. Have you heard any teach but such as the pope and cardinals have allowed? and you may be assured that such will speak nothing to offend their own estate.” The queen, after some further reasoning, told him, that although she was unable to contend with him in argument, she knew some who would answer him. “Madam,” replied Knox, fervently, “would to God that the learnedest papist in Europe were present with your grace to sustain the argument, and that you would wait patiently to hear the matter reasoned to an end!” “Well,” said she, “you may get that sooner than you believe.” “Assuredly,” said Knox, “if ever I get that in my life, I get it sooner than I believe; for the ignorant papist cannot patiently reason; and the learned and crafty papist will never come to your presence, madam, to have the ground of their religion searched out. When you shall let me see the contrary, I shall grant myself to have been deceived in that point.” Thus ended this extraordinary conference. On taking his leave of her majesty, the reformer said, “I pray God, madam, that you may be as blessed within the commonwealth of Scotland as ever Deborah was in the commonwealth of Israel.”
Some time after this, the queen, although she had obtained intelligence of the massacre of Vassy in France, where her uncle, the Duke of Guise, had attacked a congregation of protestants peaceably assembled for worship, and butchered a number of them, gave a splendid ball to her foreign servants, at which the dancing was prolonged to a late hour. Against this conduct Knox had inveighed in severe terms from the pulpit, and he was again summoned before her majesty. In his defence, he declared that he had been misrepresented, which he would show the queen, provided she would be pleased to hear him repeat, as exactly as he could, what he had preached the day before. Mary was obliged, for once, to listen to a protestant sermon. When he had finished, she told him, that if he heard anything about her conduct which displeased him, he ought to come to herself privately, and she would willingly listen to his admonitions. Knox easily saw through this proposal, which was evidently intended to prevent him from saying anything in public that might be displeasing to the court. He excused himself on the ground of his office; and, retiring, he jocularly observed, “Albeit at your grace’s commandment I am heir now, yit can I not tell what uther men shall judge of me, that at this time of day am absent from my buke, and waiting upon the court.” “Ye will not always be at your buke,” said the queen, in a pet, and turning her back upon him. As he left the room, “with a reasonable merry countenance”, he overheard one of the popish attendants saying, “He is not afraid!” “Why should the pleasing face of a gentilwoman afray me?” said he, regarding them with a sarcastic scowl; “I have luiked in the face of money angry men, and yit have not been affrayed above measure.”
At this time Knox was the only minister of Edinburgh, and there was only one place of worship—St Giles’—which, however, was capable of accommodating no fewer than three thousand persons. We may conceive the effect produced on this immense multitude by the eloquent declamations, the fervent appeals, and the overwhelming invectives, of such a preacher as Knox. And we need not wonder that the proud, the self-willed queen of Scots, who had lived amidst the flatteries and pleasures of a licentious court, and who would not listen to the advices of her most sage and favourite counsellors, should have ill brooked the unsparing rebukes of the Scottish reformer. Their last interview was more stormy than the preceding, and presents so characteristic a view of Knox, that, familiar as it may be to many of you, we cannot avoid noticing it. He had deeply offended her majesty by protesting against her marriage with Darnley. “Never had prince been handled,” she passionately exclaimed, “as she was; she had borne with him in all his rigorous speeches; she had sought his favour by all means; and yet,” said she, “I cannot be quit of you. I vow to God I shall be once revenged!” On pronouncing these words, she burst into a flood of tears. When she had composed herself, Knox proceeded calmly to make his defence. “Out of the pulpit,” he said, “few had occasion to complain of him; but there he was not his own master, but was bound to obey Him who commanded him to speak plainly, and to flatter no flesh on the face of the earth.” Mary again burst into tears. Her courtiers tried to mitigate her grief and indignation by all the arts of blandishments; but during this scene the stern and inflexible mind of the reformer displayed itself. He continued silent, with unaltered countenance, until the queen had given vent to her feelings. He then protested, “that he never took delight in the distress of any creature. that it was with great difficulty he could see his own boys weep when he corrected them, and far less could he rejoice in her majesty’s tears; but seeing he had given her no just cause of offence, and had only discharged his duty, he was constrained, though unwillingly, to sustain her tears, rather than hurt his conscience and betray the commonwealth by his silence.”
This apology inflamed the queen even more than the offence; she ordered him instantly to leave her presence, and await the signification of her pleasure in an adjoining room. There he stood alone, none of his friends venturing to show him the slightest countenance. In this situation he addressed himself to the ladies of the court who were sitting in their rich dresses in the chamber: “O fair ladies, how pleasing were this lyfe of yours, if it sould always abyde, and then, in the end, that we might pass to heiven with all this gay gear! But fye upon that knave Death, that will come, whether we will or not!”
The subsequent history of the unfortunate Mary is too well-known to require notice. For a short time, a dark cloud hung over the reformed church. The queen, by her alluring manners, gained over a party of the nobles. The Earl of Murray and other protestant noblemen were compelled to take shelter in England; mass was openly celebrated, and Knox, for his fidelity in warning the people against the consequences, was accused of high treason, and placed in such imminent hazard of his life, that his friends advised him to quit Edinburgh for a season. To crown all, Mary joined the league which had been planned by Catherine de Medicis and the Duke of Alva, those bloodiest of all persecutors, and which bound her to join with them in the extermination of all heretics—in other words, she signed the death-warrant of the great mass of her own subjects, nobility, gentry, ministers, and commons. But these gloomy appearances were soon dispelled by her own infatuated conduct. Disgusted with Darnley, and irritated by the assassination of David Rizzio, an Italian musician, whom she had made her secretary, she abandoned herself to the counsels of the Earl of Bothwell, who, to gain his own ambitious ends, plotted the murder of the king. The unfortunate Darnley, was decoyed to Edinburgh, and lodged in a house in the outskirts of the town. On the morning of the 10th February, 1567, the whole city was awakened by a tremendous explosion, which was found to proceed from the house in which the king was lodged having been blown up with gunpowder. His dead body was found lying in the neighbourhood. The whole kingdom was thrown into a ferment; the murder was traced to Bothwell, the queen’s favourite; and the suspicions of all fell upon the queen as an accomplice in the barbarous deed. These suspicions were soon confirmed by her marriage with the murderer of her husband, and led to a complete change of government. The protestant noblemen were restored, the queen was obliged to abdicate the throne, and ultimately to flee into England, and her infant son was proclaimed king of Scotland, by the title of James VI.
Poor Mary might have lived and reigned happily, had she not been a devoted papist. But she died the victim of foreign intrigues more than of her private vices. The latter might have been tolerated by her subjects; but she dealt in larger crimes, and lent herself to traffic with the religion, liberties, and lives of her countrymen. Her memory has shared a similar fate; for her injudicious admirers have sought to vindicate her at the expense of the reformers and the reformation. In defence of these, again, others have been compelled to tell the truth; and the reputation of the beautiful but frail princess, which was too tender to admit of handling, has been fairly crushed in the collision.