privilege of opening the conference, and the Protestants a man was fined a shilling; for using any other than were to reply; but it was speedily discovered that this the State ritual, forfeiture of goods and chattels was gave immense advantage to the Protestants. The Roman incurred for the first offence, a year's imprisonment Catholics called for a change of this mode; the lord- for the second, and imprisonment for life for the third. keeper refused to grant it; the bishops, therefore, pro- It was an attempt, of the kind which never succeeds, tested that the conditions were not equal, and refused to put down a rival religion by force. It became the to attend. For this disobedience the Bishops of Win-source of vast injustice and oppression, causing the most chester and Lincoln were committed to the Tower, and terrible heart-burnings and cruelties; throwing the firethe other six disputants were bound to make their brand of dissension into every neighbourhood, and proappearance at the bar of the Lords till judgment was ducing eventually sanguinary civil wars. Till the accespronounced, and they were compelled to do so till the sion of William and Mary, the Romanists were pursued end of the session, when they were fined in sums from by the most annoying surveillance, and often by the £500 to forty marks. most intolerable tyranny; and the evil was not so much at first the work of the Government, as of the puritanic zealots who brought from their unfortunate exile in Switzerland the harsh, intolerant, persecuting spirit which sprang up there, and diffused its virus far and wide through Protestant Europe. The conduct of some of the bishops during the session was extremely violent, in consequence of the acts passed against their ascendancy. Bonner was particularly prominent, and others of the Romish party, with Dr. Storey at their head, seemed to lament that they had not cut off Elizabeth whilst they had the power in their hands. These were not measures, nor this the language, to do any good to their cause; and, in fact, the queen took the earliest opportunity to deprive these audacious enemies of their power to do mischief. Parliament was dissolved on the 8th of May, and within a week she summoned the bishops, deans, and other dignitaries before herself and Privy Council, and there admonished them to make themselves conformable to the laws just passed regarding religion. Heath, the archbishop, replied by boldly advising her majesty to remember her own coronation oath, not to alter the religion which she found by law established; adding that his conscience could not permit him to conform to the new regulations, and all the other prelates and dignitaries declared the same. The Council then charged Heath and Bonner, on the evidence of certain papers, with having, during the reign of Edward VI., carried on secret conspiracies with Rome, with the intent to overthrow the Government. To this they replied by pleading two general pardons, and the Council then proceeded to administer to them the oath of supremacy. This they all refused except Kitchen, the Bishop of Landaff, who had clung to his see through all changes for the last fourteen years, and clung to it still. Under Elizabeth, the Roman Catholics could not wor ship according to their rites, except with the deepest secresy, and were continually exposed to the vigilance of spies. In 1561 Sir Edward Waldegrave and his lady were imprisoned in the Tower for having a domestic chaplain and attending mass in their own house. This was only one case amongst great numbers, and the consequence was, that numbers of Roman Catholics went abroad, for the quiet enjoyment of their religion. Cecil, Walsingham, Bacon, and others of the queen's ministers, had, in fact, to keep the Protestants in check, who demanded more severe treatment of their enemies. The injunctions of Edward VI., which were re-issued, were much modified, and opprobrious phrases, such 13 "kissing and licking images," were softened down, the licking being omitted. The injunctions of Elizabeth, contrary to those of Edward, forbade the destruction of paintings and painted windows in churches. On the other hand, the remaining monastic institutions were broken up, and the monks and nuns were turned adrift. Three convents were removed to the Continent, and many of the ejected clergy followed Feria, the Spanish ambas sador, to Spain. Five of the deprived bishops-Heath, Bonner, Boura, Turberville, and Poole-presented a petition to the queer, praying her, without loss of time, to return to the pious path of her late sister, to restore the ancient faith, and put down the prevailing heresies, before the wrath of God fell on the nation. Elizabeth, in great indignation, reminded them that they were, in her father's time, amongst the most obsequious flatterers and followers of his innovations, committed them all to prison, excommunicated them, and retained Bonner in the Marshalses for the remaining nine years of his life. The rest, after imprisonment for terms more or less long, were then pat under the care of different bishops and deans. They were then deprived of their sees, and a considerable number of other Church dignitaries were also deprived by the same test. The bulk of the clergy, however, conformed, and to those who were ejected pensions for life were allowed-a policy far more considerate than had ever prevailed in such circumstances before. The refugees on account of the Marian persecution, who had now flocked home from Switzerland and Germany, were installed in the vacant livings, and before the end of this year the Church of Rome had lost the State patronage in this country for ever. Two statutes of this session, the one establishing the oath of supremacy, and To replace the expelled bishops was no very easy the other of uniformity, became law, and pressed heavily matter, not from the paucity of candidates, but from and despotically on Papists and all classes of Dissenters the revolutions which had taken place in the ordinal till a very late period. So long as they were in force, the Church. Dr. Matthew Parker, who had been the, no one except a member of the Church of England chaplain of Anne Boleyn, and who had stood so faithhad the slightest chance of promotion or even of fully by her, was appointed by Elizabeth Archbishop of employment in the State. The statute of uniformity Canterbury-but how was he to be consecrated? H was the embodied spirit of intolerance. For absent-election was to be confirmed by four bishops, and ing himself from the worship of the Established Church, consecration to be performed by them. Where were they to be found? There was not a bisnop left, except Landaff. Still more, Mary had abolished the ordinal of Edward VI., and Elizabeth had abolished that of Mary. The difficulty was, at first sight, insurmountable, and no way out of it presented itself for four months. It was then recollected that Barlowe, Hodgkins, Scorey, and Coverdale, the deprived Bishops of Bath, Bedford, Chichester, and Exeter, had been consecrated by the reformed ordinal, and that restoration which had been denied them at the petition of their friends, because they were married men, was now accorded as an escape from this dilemma. They were reinstated, and confirmed the election of Parker, consecrated him according to the form of Edward VI., and helped to confirm and consecrate all the newly elected prelates. Elizabeth, however, procured the passing of two acts, by which she stripped the new bishops of a large amount of the property of their sees. She restored to the Crown the property which Mary had returned to the Church, and she empowered herself to seize on what episcopal lands she chose when the sees were vacant, on condition of giving tithes and parsonages instead, which, however, seldom approached to the same value. Whilst Elizabeth and her ministers had been thus engaged in settling the constitution of the Church, they had also been occupied with effecting a continental peace. Philip had refused to conclude a treaty with France previous to the death of Mary, without including in it the restoration of Calais to England, and to Philibert, the Duke of Savoy, his hereditary estates. The death of Mary at once cut the actual connection of Philip with England, but he remained firm in his demand, for he had formed the design of obtaining the hand of Elizabeth. He lost no time in making the offer, observing that though they were within the prescribed degrees of affinity the Pope would readily grant a dispensation, and the union of England and Spain would give them the command of Europe. But, independent of the partnership in power which this marriage would create, Elizabeth entertained schemes of Church arrangement very different to any which would accord with Philip's ideas. She therefore, courteously, excused herself on the plea of scruples of conscience, and this refusal was followed by the non-appearance of Feria, Philip's ambassador, at her coronation. Philip, however, did not give up the suit without employing all the eloquence and the arguments that he could muster; he kept up a brisk correspondence for some time with the new queen, and even when the attempt appeared hopeless, he still offered to assist her in the treaty with France. He settled his own disputes with France by marrying the daughter of the King of France, as soon as he saw the hand of Elizabeth unattainable, and procured the sister of Henry II. for his friend Philibert. The great demand of Elizabeth was the restoration of Calais, and at Cateau Cambresis a treaty was concluded on the 2nd of April, 1559, by which the King of France actually engaged to surrender that town to England at the end of eight years, or pay to Elizabeth 500,000 crowns; and that he should deliver, or guarantee for this sum, four French noblemen and the bonds of eight foreign merchants. But to this article was appended another, which, to any one in the least familiar with 899 diplomacy, betrayed the fact that the whole was illusory, and that there would be no difficulty, at the end of the prescribed term, on the part of the French, in showing that England had in some way broken the contract. The article was this: that if, within that period, Henry of France, or Mary of Scotland, should make any attempt against the realm or subjects of Elizabeth, they should forfeit all claim to the retention of that town; and if Elizabeth should infringe the peace with either of those monarchs, she should forfeit all claim to its surrender or to the penalty of 500,000 crowns. The public at once saw that the French would never relinquish their hold on Calais from the force of any such condition, and the indignation was proportionate. The Government, to divert the attention of the people from this flimsy pretence of eventual restoration, ordered the impeachment of Lord Wentworth, the late governor of the castle, and of Chamberlain and Hurlestone, the captains of the castle and of the Risbank, on a charge of cowardice and treason. Wentworth, as he deserved, was acquitted by the jury; the captains were condemned, but the object of the trial being attained, their sentence was never carried into effect. We have stated that Elizabeth, at her accession, had assumed the title of the Queen of France. Henry II, immediately, by way of retaliation, caused his daughterin-law to be styled Queen of Scotland and England, and had the arms of England quartered with those of Scotland. Elizabeth, with her extreme sensitiveness to any claims upon her crown, and regarding this act as a declaration of her own illegitimacy and of Henry's assertion of Mary's superior right to the English throne, resented the proceeding deeply, and from that moment never ceased to plot against the peace and power of Mary till she drove her from her throne, made her captive, and finally deprived her of her life. We have already shown that Henry VII. commenced, and Henry VIII. and Edward VI. continued, the system of bribing the Scottish nobility against their sovereign. Elizabeth, in pursuance of her plans against the Queen of Scots, now adopted the same practice, and kept in pay both the nobles and the Protestant leaders of Scotland. To understand fully her proceedings, we must, however, first take a hasty glance at the progress of the Reformation in Scotland. That kingdom received the Reformation in its simplest, most rigid, and severe form. The doctrines which had sprung up in republican Switzerland, under Calvin and Zwinglius, were imbibed there by Knox and others in their most unbending hardness. There was little of the gentle and the pliant in their tenets, but a stern asceticism, which suited well with the grave and earnest character of the Scotch. Foremost in the movement had stood the resolute John Knox, from the moment that he returned from his Algerine captivity, in 1580. During the reign of Edward VI. he was well received in England, and lent his aid in promoting those ecclesiastical changes which took place under that monarch. On the accession of Mary, he fled again to the Continent, and became minister of the English refugees at Frankfort. But there the Presbyterian system, which he pressed upon his congregation, was too unpalatable for them, and he was expelled from his pulpit, charged with treason against the Emperor, and fled to Geneva. Confirmed in the puritanism of his master, Calvin, he returned to Scotland in 1558. He found the Reformers there disposed to take a more moderate course than that which he had learned, at Geneva, to regard as the only righteous one. They were in the habit of attending mass; and as the queen-regent had, for her own purposes, shown some favour to the Reformers, they were anxious to go as far with her in conformity to the national Church as they could. Knox boldly opposed this spirit of compromise, and brought over Maitland of Lethington to his views. A more open and formal separation from the Romish Church was determined upon. He now numbered amongst his adherents men destined to figure in the religious history of their time: Erskine of Dun, a man of baronial rank and ancient family; Sir James Sandilands, commonly styled Lord St. John; Archibald, Lord Lorn, afterwards Earl of Argyll; the Master of Mar; James Stuart, prior of St. Andrews, a natural brother of Mary Queen of Scots, now called the Lord James; the Earl Glencairn; and the Earl-Marshal. The opposing clergy, roused by the recommendations of Knox for separation, summoned him to appear before an ecclesiastical convention in Edinburgh. Thither he repaired, and, to his agreeable surprise, found the Reformers collected in such numbers as to overawe his enemies. He addressed a letter to the queen-regent, calling upon her to protect the reformed preachers, and even to attend their sermons. This was a stretch of assurance which Mary of Guise treated with ridicule; and the opposite party, emboldened by her secret countenance, began to plot against his safety. A period of danger seemed approaching, and Knox, to the astonishment of his friends, at this moment accepted an invitation to become pastor of the reformed congregation at Geneva, where all was prosperous and secure. private letters to Erskine of Dun and Wishart of Pitarrow, produced the intended effect. A new impulse was given to the cause of reform; the leaders of the cause came together, their zeal acquired every day more fervency, and on the 3rd of December, 1557, they drew up that League and Covenant which was destined to work such wonders in Scotland, to rouse the suffering Reformers into an actual church militant; to put arms into the hands of the excited peasants, brace the sword to the side of the preacher, and, through civil war and scenes of strange suffering, bloodshed, and resistance on moor and mountain, to work out the freedom of the faith for ever in Scotland. The Covenant engaged all who subscribed it, in a solemn vow, "in the presence of the Majesty of God and his congregation," to spread the Word by every means in their power, to maintain the Gospel and defend its ministers against all tyranny; and it pronounced the most bitter anathemas against the superstition, the idolatry, and the abominations of Rome. This bond received the signatures of the Earls of Glencairn, Argyll, and Morton, Lord Lorn, Erskine of Dun, and many other nobles and gentlemen, who assumed the name of the Lords of the Congregation: and from this hour it became a scandalous apostacy for any one to flinch or fall away from this "solemn League and Covenant." War to the death was thus proclaimed against the established religion, and the Congregation, as the Reformers now styled themselves, passed a resolution, that in all the parishes of the realm the Common Prayer Book-that is, the book of Edward VI.—should be regularly used, with corresponding lessons from the Old and New Testament, and that the curates should read the same; but, if they were not qualified, or refusal, then the next qualified person should do it for them Preaching, or interpretation of the Scriptures, was recommended to be used also in private houses, but not in such numbers as to draw the attention of the Govern ment till such time as God should move the prince t grant public preaching by true and faithful ministers The Roman Catholic leaders exulted in the flight of Knox; they summoned him to stand his trial, and as he, of course, could not appear, condemned him, and burnt him in effigy at the High Cross in Edinburgh. The conduct of the Reformers whom he left behind him was far bolder than his own. When summoned by Mary of Guise to appear in Edinburgh and answer for their conduct, the preachers, attended by thronging thousands of the respective congregations, presented themselves in such a formidable shape, that the regent declared that she meant no injury to them; and a period of such tranquillity succeeded, that the leaders of the Reform party -the Earl of Glencairn, Lord Lorn, son of the Earl of Argyll, Erskine of Dun, Stuart, afterwards the Regent Murray-entreated Knox to return to his country, which they assured him he might do in safety. Knox resigned his charge, and had reached Dieppe in order to take ship for Scotland, when he received the intelligence that the zeal of the Reformers had cooled, that the scheme which occasioned them to write to him had been abandoned, and that the Protestants preferred worshipping God in private to daring the perils of a public contest. Knox wrote a most indignant answer, telling the nobles that if they thought they should escape tyranny and oppression by shunning danger, they grievously deceived themselves; that they would only encourage the enemy to greater insolence, and that the work of reformation was especially This deed produced its natural fruits. The Lords of :: that of the nobles. This address, accompanied by stinging | Congregation remonstrated with the queen-regent bolig The Lords of the Congregation proceeded forthwith to put these resolutions in force in all their own districts The Earl of Argyll ordered Douglas, his chaplain, preach openly in his own house, and a second letter was written to hasten the arrival of Knox. The Papal cler were greatly excited, and called on the queen-regent to interpose her authority; but Mary of Guise had a diffirit part to play. The marriage of her daughter with the dauphin was about to take place, but as yet the Sco Parliament had not given its final consent. She there. had to avoid incensing the nobles of either persuas and whilst she supported the views of the establishment she was obliged to protest against proceeding to tremities with the Reformers. The Archbishop of S Andrews was averse to persecution also; but the cha would not let him rest, and Walter Miln, the par priest of Lunan, in Angus, who had been condemned. a heretic in the time of Cardinal Beaton, but had escape from prison, was now seized, and brought to the s He was a venerable man of upwards of eighty, and b death excited such a horror and indignation, that he w the last victim in Scotland by fire. and roused the indignation of the country against the clergy. Emissaries were dispatched in all directions to stir up the people against such cruelty, and Mary of Guise was compelled to protest, to a deputation headed by Sir James Sandilands, that such measures were contrary to her wishes, and that the Protestants should have her protection. In the Parliament of December, 1558, the Lords of the Congregation demanded that all proceedings on account of heresy should be suspended till the present differences of opinion in the Church should be settled by a general council, and that no churchman should judge those accused of heresy, but lay judges only. At this crisis Elizabeth of England ascended the throne. The power of the Papists was there for a moment paralysed; but in France, Mary's daughter was now married, and her husband, the dauphin, was proclaimed king-consort of Scotland by consent of Parliament. Mary of Guise's objects were accomplished, and she at once threw off the disguise of assumed moderation towards the Reformers. She at once joined the policy of her brothers, the Duke of Guise and the cardinal, whose object was to combine France and the Papists of France, England, and Scotland, for the dethronement of Elizabeth, and the establishment of the Queen of Scots in her place. The first step was evidently to put down the Reformation in Scotland, and to secure the French dominance in that country, by which they imagined that, in combination with the disaffected Roman Catholics of England, they would easily depose Elizabeth. 401 Perth had embraced the Protestant faith, she was so exasperated that she commanded Lord Ruthven, the provost, to suppress the heresy. "Madam," replied that nobleman, "I can cut down the people till you are satiated with their blood; but over their consciences I have no power." Blind to the folly of her course, she reprimanded Ruthven for what she termed his malapert speech, and issued orders for Porth, Dundee, Montrose, and other places which had renounced Romanism to return to the ancient faith, duly to attend mass, and again summoned the reformed preachers to appear at Stirling to answer for their delinquencies. At this moment, as by the direct ordering of Providence, Knox arrived. He found the position of Protestantism very different from that in which he left it. Then, the Reformers were zealous, but their numbers few; now, they were numerous and powerful, though menaced. Willock, Douglas, and other ministers had, during his absence, been labouring at the peril of their lives; but now, not only were they protected by the nobles, by the indignant spirit of the people at large, but by England under her new Protestant queen. It was determined by the Lords of the Congregation to attend their ministers to Stirling in such numbers as to overawe the Government, and Knox volunteered to take his part with the other preachers. The nobles and the people mustered at Perth, and Erskine of Dun was sent on to request an interview with the queen-regent. Mary of Guise, aware of the formidable assembly of the Protestants, on this occasion exercised that duplicity for which she became famous. On Erskine assuring her that the people asked for nothing more than to worship God according to their consciences in peace, she declared that that was only reasonable, and if the leaders would request their followers to disperse, the summonses to the ministers should be discharged, and toleration fully conceded. But no sooner had the people returned home from Perth on the faith of this promise, than, acting on her maxim that promises were only to be regarded by princes as long as they were convenient, she continued the summonses, denounced all who did not appear as rebels, and made it high treason for any one to harbour them. Erskine of Dun, burning with indignation at this gross perfidy, hastened to Perth, where, on the announcement of this news, Knox ascended the pulpit, and preached a fiery sermon against the idolatry of the mass, and enumerated the stern com A firm stand against the demands of the Reformers indicated this change in the policy of the queen-regent. In a convention of the clergy held in Edinburgh, in March, 1559, the Lords of the Congregation demanded that the bishops should be elected by the gentlemen of the diocese, and the clergy by people of each parish. This was peremptorily refused, and it was decreed that the practice of using English prayers should cease, no language should be permitted in public worship but Latin, and this was followed by a proclamation of the queen-regent, ordering all people to conform strictly to the established religion, to attend mass daily; and, in an interview with the leaders of the Protestants, she showed them the commands which she had received on these heads from France, and summoned the chief ministers of the reformed body to appear before a Parliament to be held at Stirling to answer for their conduct in intro-mands of Scripture for the destruction of all the monuducing heretical practices and doctrines. The astonished Lords of the Congregation protested against so arbitrary and alarming a determination of government, and reminded the queen-regent of her solemn and repeated promises of toleration and protection. "Promises," replied the regent, to their still greater amazement, "ought not to be urged upon princes, unless they can conveniently fulfil them." This flagrant avowal of the basest Jesuitical doctrine so startled the lords, that they replied, on the spot: Madam, if you are resolved to keep no faith with your subjects, we will renounce our allegiance; and it will be for your grace to consider the calamities which such a state of things must entail upon the country." 66 For a moment this remonstrance appeared to influence the infatuated roman, but soon hearing that the town of ments of that crime. Scarcely had the people retired |