a similar visitation, Winzet also frankly admits that "this controuersie and tumult . . . cumis but dout of the formare iniquitie and contempt of God in us and our forbearis."1

The attacking and resisting forces soon collided, and in the conflict, short and sharp, the old faith succumbed to the new, and on the 24th August 1560 the Protestant Church was formally established. Ministers and teachers of the old faith, like Winzet, were soon ejected summarily from their offices. The reign of Romanism was over.

In the summer of 1559 the "rascal multitude," which carried destruction of the sacred edifices from Perth to Edinburgh, fell upon and spoiled the churches of Linlithgow. On the 28th of June Knox and the Lords of the Congregation passed through the burgh. If, as Leslie and Conn assert, Winzet met Knox in a public conference in Linlithgow, it may have been on this occasion, there being no other reference to Knox's presence in that town at this period discoverable.

Ziegelbauer alludes to some such public disputation without mentioning the scene of it.3 Mr Gracie, in his 'Life of Ninian Winzet,' referring to this alleged disputation, concludes that "for this statement there is no good authority," Conn being probably indebted to Bishop Leslie, "who is not always minutely accurate." 4 It is

1 'The Complaynt of Scotlande,' &c., p. 31; Winzet, 'Certain Tractates,' vol. i. pp. 11, 65.

2 Herries, ‘Historical Memoirs of the Reign of Mary, Queen of Scots,' &c., p. 41, Abbotsford Club, 1836; Cunningham, 'The Church History of Scotland,' vol. i. p. 259, 2d edit., Edin. 1882.

3 Ziegelbauer, 'Hist.,' pt. iii. p. 360-"Emergente in Scotia hæresi Calvinianâ, unus is fuit qui se Ioanni Knoxio et Thomæ Spotswodio Calvini discipulis et rebellionis Coryphæis strenuè opposuit eosque disputationibus quâ publicis quâ privatis adeò convicit ut victoriæ palmam Niniano boni omnes adscriberent." 4 Gracie, Preface to 'Certane Tractatis,' p. xiii. Mait. Club, 1835.

hardly to be credited that so able a scholar and so persistent a polemic as the Master of Linlithgow would permit the triumphant "Patriark of the Calviniane Court" to pass through the burgh without challenging him there and then. Although Knox nowhere mentions Winzet, and Winzet, in turn, does not allude to this episode, there is not sufficient ground for slighting the testimony of Leslie -the intimate friend and patron of Winzet in exile—who is emphatic in his statement that the two defenders of the faith met and disputed. Leslie's words are,-"Siquidem primum cum Knoxio ac non multo post cum Spottisuodæo, Superintendente Kinlouæo de sanctissimæ eucharistiæ veritate, Lythcoi, coram frequenti magistratu conseruit Ninianus Winzetus; ac cum Willoxio de controversis dogmatibus Glasgoo, Robertus Maxuelius, uterque ludi magister."

"1

Father Dalrymple, who was a monk of St James's Monastery at or near the time Winzet was its Superior, thus translates this passage: "As first with Knox and schortlie efter with Spottiswoode the Superintendens, Kinlouie the minister, of the blist sacrament and trueth of it in Lythcoi, afor the hail court, thairfor the selfe same disputed Mr N. Winzet and with Willox for the same controuersaries in Glasgwe, he and Robert Maxual baith scuil maisteris." 2 Conn claimed a victory for Winzet, and Leslie narrates how the interference of these champions helped to sustain the courage and hopes of their co-religionists. It is highly improbable, if not impossible, that Leslie could make a palpable mistake, and one so easily corrected too, regarding

1 Leslæus, 'De Origine, Moribus, et Rebus Gestis Scotorum,' lib. x. pp. 582, 583. Romæ, 1578. 4to.

2 Dalrymple, MS. 'Hist.'

3 Geo. Conæus, 'De Duplici Statu Religionis apud Scotos,' p. 135. Romæ, 1628. 4to. Leslie, supra.

so striking an incident in the career of his associate and friend who contributed a prefatory encomium to the very history which publishes the reference to the disputation.

It was amid the convulsions of 1559 that there occurred "a grete occasioun quhareby the auctour wes first moueit to wryte," as he himself notes on the margin of the 'Buke of Questions.' The phrase "coram frequenti magistratu -"afor the haill court," might as aptly describe the assembly of the Lords of the Congregation--who had constituted themselves into the government, as they rested at Linlithgow on their march to Edinburgh, as any full bench of magistrates-the Protestant provost and bailies of the burgh who, we may presume, in 1561 executed the decrees of the General Assembly against Winzet at the instance of the minister Kinloquhy, or the Superintendent Spotiswood.2

3

In January 1561 the Aberdeen defenders of the old faith. met the reformers in a similar disputation in Edinburgh, in the presence of the Lords of the Congregation. Thus a public conference of Knox with Winzet in Linlithgow is just what we might have expected in the circumstances.

That, at the outset of the Reformation, " initio tumultuum," Winzet made a memorable assault upon the creed of the reformers, while he was resident in Linlithgow, is apparent from a passing allusion made in his 'Velitatio,' to a criticism by the erudite orientalist, Patrick Cocburn, upon

1 Winzet, 'Certain Tractates,' vol. P. 53.

2 'The Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies of the Kirk of Scotland, 1560, 1618,'-[The Booke of the Universall Kirk of Scotland.] Part i. p. 3. Bann. Club, 1839-1845.

3 Knox, 'The Hist. of the Reformation in Scotland,' vol. i. p. 138, Laing ed., Edin. 1846; Cunningham, 'The Church Hist. of Scotland,' vol. i. p. 294, 2d ed., Edin. 1882.

Winzet's defence of the doctrine of prayer for the dead.1 Details of this disputation are also awanting.

But we are not left in doubt concerning the subsequent conference mentioned by Leslie, and its approximate date, -Winzet declaring that he "at the command of Dene Patrik Kinloquhy, precheour in Linlythgow, and of his Superintendent . . . for denying only to subscrive thair phantasie and factioun of faith wes expellit and schott out of that my kyndly toun."2 In July 1560 John Spotiswood was nominated, and on the 9th of March 1561, was admitted, Superintendent of Lothian, an office whose jurisdiction extended from Stirling to Dunbar.3 According to Spotiswood's son-the historian-" divers conferences" were “kept with him to make him acknowledge his errors, but he continued obstinate, and was therefore sentenced by the Church." 4 Immediately after the establishment of the Reformed Church, ministers, sheriffs, and other public servants who refused to conform to the new faith were ejected from their offices, by order of the General Assembly; but it was not till June 1563 that teachers were expelled under a similar edict.5 Winzet, being a popular man, may have held out till July 1561.

1 Winzet, 'Velitatio in Geo. Buchananum,' p. 222 :—

"Hæc fusiùs nunc de rogando Deo pro defunctis quòd meminerim M. Patricium Cocburnum, hominem multæ lectionis, et qui multorum iudicio in eruditionis palæstra cæteris ministris in Scotia facilè palmam præripuerat, mihi initio tumultuum in oppido Lithquoo obiicienti, inter alia has et similes sententias, non sine indignatione cùm vrgeretur respondisse, Chrysostomum nunquam eâ de re vel somniasse quidem.”

2 Winzet, 'Certain Tractates,' vol. i. p. 49.

3A Diurnal of Remarkable Occurrents,' &c., p. 64. Edin. 1833, 4to.; Knox, 'Hist.,' vol. ii. p. 144, note.

4 Spotiswood, The History of the Church of Scotland,' p. 183. Lond. 1655, fol.

5 Booke of the Univ. Kirk,' &c., Pt. i. pp. 5, 33.

1

Winzet, referring to "the secund occasioun to wryte mair largelie to Johne Knox," which, as he states, was on "the xx of Februar or thairby," narrates that he "wrait to thame (Kinloquhy and Spotiswood) familiarlie in a plesand manere, forzetand all former iniuris done to me, or to wtheris my faithfull brethir." To the epistle "my new king Kinloquhy," as Winzet styles him, replied in a manner displeasing to his opponent, but promising an answer upon its merits. After Winzet "had avytit vij or viij monethis thairupon," without receiving this reply, he gathered the main points of the controversies of the time together, and consulted his brother clergy concerning them. "Thai desyrit thir questionis mair trimlie and strenthelie to be set furth, with ma large auctoriteis, and to be writtin agane: and thairefter to be deliverit to the principall precheouris of the new factioun." 2 Knox received the questions, as Winzet informs us, in the spring of 1562.3 Thus Winzet must have left Linlithgow in the previous summer.

IV. ARRIVAL OF MARY-CONTROVERSIAL ACTIVITYTHE TRACTATES.

On the arrival of Queen Mary and her brilliant Court, on the 19th August 1561, hope revived among the Romanist party. "With beautie eneuch to mak a world to dote," the young monarch possessed another charm to her coreligionists in her unwavering lifelong ambition to resuscitate the faith of her fathers in Scotland,-a desire in which she was encouraged by the Supreme Pontiff.

1 Winzet, 'Certain Tractates,' vol. i. p. 54.

2 Ibid., pp. 54, 55.

"The mad

3 Ibid., p. 61.

4 'Conc. Scot.,' Pref. clxvi; ‘Life of John Knox,' M‘Crie, Note UU. p. 175. Edin. 1884.