Works

Parliament dissolved, consultation was had as to how the Kirk, which had been altogether defaced by the Papists, might be established in a good and godly policy. Commission and charge were given to Mr. John Winram, Sub-prior of St. Andrews, Master John Spottiswood, John Willock, Mr. John Douglas, Rector of St. Andrews, Master John Row, and John Knox, to prepare a volume containing the policy and discipline of the Kirk, much as in the Confession of Faith they had done in the matter of doctrine. This they did, and the book was presented to the Nobility, who perused it for many days. Some approved it, and were willing that it should have been set forth by a law. Others, perceiving their carnal liberty and worldly commodity somewhat to be impaired by its provisions, grudged, insomuch that the name of the Book of Discipline became odious unto them.... There were none within the realm more unmerciful to the poor ministers than were they which had greatest rents of the churches. But in that we have perceived the old proverb to be true, "Nothing can suffice a wretch;" and again, "The belly has no ears." Yet the Book of Discipline was subscribed by a great part of the Nobility.¹...

Shortly after the Parliament, the Earls Morton and Glencairn, together with William Maitland of Lethington, younger, were sent to England as ambassadors from the Council. The chief point of their commission was to crave earnestly the constant assistance of the Queen's Majesty of England against all foreign invasion, and to propose the Earl of Arran (who was then in no small estimation with us) to the Queen of England in marriage....

The Papists were proud, for they looked for a new army from France in the next spring, and there was no small appearance of this, if God had not otherwise provided. For France utterly refused to confirm the peace contracted at Leith, would ratify no Act of our Parliament, dismissed the Lord St. John without any resolute answer, and began to gather new bands of throat-cutters, and to make great preparation for ships. They further sent before them certain practisers to rouse up new troubles within this realm....

The certain knowledge of all these things came to our ears, and many were effrayed; for divers suspected that England would not be so forward in times to come, considering that their former expenses were so great. The principal comfort remained with the preachers. They assured us, in God's name, that God would in our hands perform that work in all perfection. He had mightily maintained its beginning, because it was not ours but His own. They therefore exhorted us that we should with constancy proceed to reform all abuses and to plant the ministry of the Church, as by God's Word we might justify it, and should then commit the success of all to our God, in whose power the disposition of kingdoms stands. This we began to do, for threatening troubles made us give ear to the admonitions of God's servants.

[Side note: Death of the King of France: 5th December 1560.]

We had scarcely begun again to implore the help of our God, and to show some signs of our obedience unto His messengers and Holy Word, when, lo! the potent hand of God from above sent unto us a wonderful and most joyful deliverance. For unhappy Francis, husband to our sovereign, suddenly perished of a rotten ear.... And we, who by our foolishness had made ourselves slaves to strangers, were restored again to freedom and the liberty of a free realm. Oh! that we had hearts deeply to consider what are Thy wondrous works, O Lord, that we might praise Thee in the midst of this most obstinate and wicked generation, and leave the memorial of the same to our posterity, who, alas! we fear, may forget Thy inestimable benefits.... The death of this King made great alteration in France, England, and Scotland. France was relieved and in some hope....

The Queen of England and the Council sent back our Ambassadors with answer that she would not marry hastily, and therefore desired the Council of Scotland, and the Earl of Arran, not to depend upon any hope thereof. What motives she had, we omit. The pride of the Papists of Scotland began to be abated, and some that had ever shown themselves enemies to us began to think, and plainly to admit in words, that they perceived God to fight for us. The Earl of Arran himself did more patiently abide the repulse of the Queen of England, because he was not altogether without hope that the Queen of Scotland bare some favour unto him. And so he wrote to her, and for credit sent a ring which the said Queen our Sovereign knew well enough. The letter and ring were both presented to the Queen and received by her. Answer was returned to the Earl, and after that he made no further pursuit in the matter: not the less, he bare it heavily in heart, and more heavily than many would have wissed.²

The certainty of the death of King Francis was notified unto us both by sea and land. When the news was divulged and noised abroad, a general Convention of the whole nobility was appointed to be holden at Edinburgh on the fifteenth day of January following. The Book of Discipline was thereat perused over again, for some pretended ignorance, because they had not heard it.

At that assembly, Master Alexander Anderson, sub-principal of Aberdeen, a man more subtle and crafty than either learned or godly, was called on but refused to dispute in his faith, abusing a place of Tertullian to cloak his ignorance. It was answered to him, that Tertullian should not prejudge the authority of the Holy Ghost, who, by the mouth of Peter, commands us to give reason for our faith to every one that requires the same of us. It was further answered that we required neither him nor any man to dispute in any point concerning our faith, which was grounded upon God's Word, and fully expressed within His holy Scriptures; all that we believed without controversy. But we required of him, as of the rest of the Papists, that they would suffer their doctrine, constitutions, and ceremonies to come to trial; and principally, that the Mass, and the views thereof taught by them to the people, might be laid to the square rule of God's Word, and unto the right institution of Jesus Christ....

While the said Mr. Alexander denied that the priest took upon him Christ's office to offer for sin, as was alleged, a Mass book was produced, and in the beginning of the Canon were these words read: Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem, quam ego indignus peccator offero tibi vivo Deo et vero, pro peccatis meis, pro peccatis totius Ecclesiae vivorum et mortuorum, etc.³ Now, said the reasoner, if to offer for the sins of the whole Kirk was not the office of Christ Jesus, yea, the office that to Him only might, and may appertain, let the Scripture judge. And if a vile knave, whom ye call the priest, proudly takes the same upon him, let your own book witness. The said Master Alexander answered, "Christ Jesus offered the propitiatory, and that could none do but He; but we offer the remembrance." It was answered, "We praise God, that ye have denied a sacrifice propitiatory to be in the Mass; and yet we offer to prove that, in more than a hundred places of your papistical Doctors, this proposition is affirmed, 'The Mass is a sacrifice propitiatory.' But, to the second part; where ye allege that ye offer Christ in remembrance, we ask, first, unto whom do ye offer Him? and next, by what authority are ye assured of well doing? With God the Father, there is no oblivion: and if ye will yet shift and say that ye offer it not as if God were forgetful, but as willing to apply Christ's merits to His Church, we demand of you, what power and commandment ye have so to do? We know that our Master, Christ Jesus, commanded His apostles to do that which He did in remembrance of Him; but plain it is, that Christ took bread, gave thanks, brake bread, and gave it to His disciples, saying, 'Take ye, eat ye; this is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me,' etc. Here ye find a commandment to take, to eat, to take and to drink; but to offer Christ's body either for remembrance or application, we find not: and therefore, we say, to take upon you an office which is not given unto you, is unjust usurpation, and no lawful power."

The said Master Alexander, being more than astonished, would have shifted; but the Lords called on him to answer directly. He answered that he was better seen in philosophy, than in theology. Master John Leslie, who then was parson of Une, and now is Lord Abbot of Lindores, was commanded to answer to the former argument: and he with great gravity began to answer, "If our Master have nothing to say to it, I have nothing; for I know nothing but the Canon Law: and the greatest reason that ever I could find there is Nolumus and Volumus." And yet we understand that now he is the only patron of the Mass.... The nobility hearing that neither the one nor the other would answer directly, said, "We have been miserably deceived heretofore; for if the Mass may not obtain remission of sins to the quick and to the dead, wherefore were all the abbeys so richly doted⁴ with our temporal lands."

Thus much we have thought good to insert here, because some Papists are not ashamed nowadays to affirm that they with their reasons could never be heard; but that all that we did, we did by fine force; when the whole realm knows that we ever required them to speak their judgments freely, not only promising them protection and defence, but also that we should subscribe with them, if they by God's Scriptures could confute us, and by the same Word establish their assertions.

At this Assembly also, the Lord James was appointed to go to France to the Queen our Sovereign; and a Parliament was appointed to begin on the twentieth of May next following; for the return of the said Lord James was looked for at that time.... He was plainly premonished that, if ever he condescended that the Queen should have Mass publicly or privately within the realm of Scotland, he then betrayed the cause of God, and exposed religion to the uttermost danger that he could....

While Lord James, we say, was in France, there came an ambassador from France, suborned, no doubt, with all craft that might trouble the Estate of the religion. His demands were—1. That the league betwixt us and England should be broken. 2. That the ancient league betwixt France and Scotland should be renewed. 3. That the bishops and kirkmen should be reponed in their former places, and be suffered to intromit with their livings. The Council delayed answer until the Parliament appointed in May. In the meantime, the Papists of Scotland practised with him....

The Papists, a little before the Parliament, resorted in divers bands to the town, and began to brag that they would deface the Protestants. When this was perceived, the brethren assembled together, and went in such companies, in peaceable manner, that the bishops and their bands forsook the causeway.⁵ The brethren understanding what the Papists meant, convened in Council in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, on the twenty-seventh of May, in the year of God 1561; and, after consultation, concluded that a humble supplication should be presented unto the Lords of Secret Council, and unto the whole Assembly that then was convened.... Upon this request, the Lords of Council made an Act and ordinance answering to every head of the Articles proponed. And thus gat Satan the second fall, after he had begun to trouble the estate of religion, once established by law. His first assault was by the rascal multitude opposing themselves to the punishment of vice: the second was by the bishops and their bands, in which he thought utterly to have triumphed; and yet in the end he prospered worse than ye have heard.

For, in the meantime, the Lord James returned from France. Besides his great expenses, and the loss of a box wherein was his secret poise, he barely escaped a desperate danger in Paris. The Papists at Paris, hearing of his return from our Sovereign, who then lay with the Cardinal of Lorraine at Rheims, had conspired some treasonable act against him; for they intended either to beset his house by night, or else to have assaulted him and his company as they walked upon the streets. Of this the said Lord James was informed by the Rheingrave, by reason of old familiarity betwixt them in Scotland, and he took purpose suddenly and in good order to depart from Paris. This he did on the second day after he had arrived there. He could not, however, depart so secretly, but that the Papists had their privy ambushes. They had prepared a procession, which met the said Lord and his company even in the teeth upon the Pont du Change; and knowing that the Scots would not do the accustomed reverence unto them and their idols, they thought to have picked a quarrel. So, as one part passed by without moving of hat to anything that was there, they had suborned some to cry "Huguenots," and to cast stones. But God disappointed their enterprise; for the Rheingrave and other gentlemen, being with the Lord James, rebuked the foolish multitude, and overrode some of the foremost. The rest were dispersed; and he and his company safely escaped, and came with expedition to Edinburgh, while yet the Lords and assembly were together.

The Lord James's coming was of great comfort to many godly hearts, and caused no little astonishment to the wicked: for, from the Queen our Sovereign he brought letters to the Lords, praying them to entertain quietness, to suffer nothing to be attempted against the contract of peace made at Leith, until her own home-coming, and to suffer the religion publicly established to go forward, etc. Thereupon, the Lords gave the French Ambassador a negative answer to every one of his petitions....

In the treaty of peace contracted at Leith, there were certain heads that required the ratification of both the Queens. The Queen of England, according to her promise, subscription, and seal, performed the same without any delay, and sent it to our Sovereign by her appointed officers. But our Sovereign (whether because her own crafty nature so moved her, or because her uncle's chief counsellors so desired, we know not) with many delatours⁶ frustrated the expectation of the Queen of England.... This somewhat exasperated the Queen of England, and not altogether without cause; for the arms of England had formerly been usurped by our Sovereign and her husband Francis; and Elizabeth, Queen of England, was reputed little better than a bastard by the Guisians. It had been agreed that this title should be renounced, but our proud and vain-glorious Queen was not pleased with this, especially after her husband was dead. "The to-look⁷ of England shall allure many wooers to me," thought she, and the Guisians and the Papists of both the realms animated her not a little in that pursuit. The effect will appear sooner than the godly of England would desire; and yet is she that now reigneth over them neither good Protestant nor yet resolute Papist.⁸...